


Scenes From An Unlikely Tale.

by Jackmerlin



Category: The Marlows - Antonia Forest
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-04 03:32:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 68,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10982478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackmerlin/pseuds/Jackmerlin
Summary: Nicola never wanted to 'do' anything with her singing. She did want to go on an epic solo sailing trip.What if she needed to fund her sailing trip and someone suggested that she could earn money by singing? What if that someone was Jan Scott's brother Philip?(Not a new story; this was previously on my LJ.)





	1. Nicola Buys A Boat.

**Author's Note:**

> This story follows my short story 'Changes'. It opens four years after 'Cricket Term' ends in the Marlow timeline, and assuming 'Cricket Term' was set a year or two before publication, I have set this in the mid-seventies.  
> It is set in a different timeline to my story 'The Importance Of Elsewhere', so it doesn't entirely work as a sequel, but things that happened in that story also happened in this one - so Ginty has become an event rider and Peter has taken over the farm while Rowan goes off to have a life of her own.  
> As I have no knowledge of Oxford, little of sailing, and not enough of singing, I apologise in advance for any clangers I have made, and will be happy to edit any that are pointed out to me.

Kingscote was behind her; Oxford lay ahead. Nicola Marlow felt uneasily in limbo between the two. The highs of the last week at school had ebbed away, leaving her stranded at the start of a long and empty summer. Her uncharacteristic restlessness was made worse by knowing that she was seemingly the only one at a loose end. Only her father, at home for an unexpectedly long leave, seemed equally adrift with nothing to do.  
Lawrie had left from Kingscote with Tim and her parents, having been invited to spend a month with them in a rented villa on a Greek island. Nicola knew that she was secretly being a heel for feeling jealous of Lawrie, but honestly - it wouldn’t mean a _thing_ to Lawrie that it was _Greece_ , and her and Tim would most probably only loaf around in the sun - they could just as well be _anywhere_. Although she had long ago abandoned her original idea of studying classics at Oxford in favour of modern history, when she had realised that she wasn't going to learn Greek well enough in time, she still wanted to visit the scenes of all those stories - Thermopylae, the Peloponnesian War (which much as she loved Thucydides, always meant Lysis and Alexias to her), Nico at Delphi, Alexander.  
Her own friend Miranda was away on what she called a ‘shopping trip’ with her father. From what she had guardedly told Nicola, shopping trips seemed to consist of discreet visits to minor stately homes whose impoverished owners needed to sell off another chandelier in order to patch the roof again. Which seemed interesting in some ways, thought Nicola, but considering how attached she herself was to anything that had been in the family for years, terribly sad also.  
Patrick, with whom Nicola would normally spend most of her spare time, was away. He was spending another summer in France. Two years ago he had spent a summer there with family connections before starting university, and he had been invited back. The odd postcard he sent didn’t tell Nicola much, so presumably he was enjoying himself. His letters from firstly school, and then university, tended to be long and detailed.  
Normally Nicola would spend a fair amount of her summer helping Rowan on the farm. Rowan could be pretty decent about it, even paying her a day's casual wages if she did a full day of something useful like driving the tractor when they were baling and carting. But this was the summer that Rowan was handing over to Peter, and Nicola felt in the way; partly because she sensed that Peter didn’t like to have his younger sister as an audience when he was having things explained to him by an older sister, and partly because she saw no need to help Peter out any more than necessary by taking on all the dreggiest jobs that were likely to come her way.  
Even her least favourite sisters Ann and Ginty were both away. They rarely came home these days; Ann was doing nursing training and Ginty working with horses.  
There were the Dodds of course, who were always happy to see her, but they mostly seemed busy with their own affairs, sparing her only a pleased, “Hi, Nacker!” as they cycled past in a hurry to meet local friends.  
There wasn’t much point in riding even, with Buster retired. There was only Prisca left , unless her mother lent her Chocbar. After years of being middle-aged and grumpy, Prisca was now decidedly elderly and grumpy, and not really that much fun to ride. Catkin had been sold when Ginty left, and Peter and Lawrie had simultaneously grown bored with riding and agreed (surprisingly amicably) to sell the Idiot Boy. One bonus of this as far as Nicola was concerned was that Peter had repaid her the stake she had originally lent him to buy the Idiot.  
Peter’s repaid loan meant that her windfall was once again a substantial sum of money. It was discussing her plans for it with her father that unexpectedly saved both their summers. They were the only two lingering at the breakfast table after Mrs Marlow had rushed off to a hair appointment, Encouraged by having his sole attention for once, Nicola expanded on her plans to buy a boat that could be safely sailed single-handed, and the trip she would like to do round the Mediterranean. She had modified her original ambition to sail round the world. She had done a reasonable amount of sailing in the previous few summers with either Giles, Rowan or Peter, and occasionally her father, but she now considered herself only experienced enough to know just how little she really knew.  
To her surprise, her father reacted to the plan with an enthusiasm that swiftly made her day dreams into firstly a solid plan, and then a reality. She ought, her father said, to look for a boat this summer. Then she could fix it up if needed, and do some short trips in it. Just days to start with, then a few two or three day trips. Then next summer, she could do some longer voyages; and then after her second year at Oxford, she should be able to go off for at least a month. That way, he enthused, she would gradually build up experience and confidence. He had time on his hands, he could come and look at possible boats with her. In fact, if she would let him, he’d love to get his hands dirty again working on a proper little boat.  
There followed an absolutely blissful couple of weeks for Nicola. Companionable drives in the car with her father cheerfully telling Naval stories; more sailing stories being swapped in boat yards and chandlers, long lunches in harbour-side pubs during which they discussed the merits of the boats they had looked at so far. Occasionally Geoff introduced a more serious note.  
“What are you going to do about money for this trip?” he asked over their fish and chips one lunch-time.  
Nicola had been hoping she might have some left from her windfall after buying the boat, but she had come to realise over the last week that the boat was likely to cost all she had and then some. Geoff had been brooding on this too.  
“How would you feel about me having the loan of your boat?” he asked. “When you’re away in term-time, I mean. If I put something in for the mooring fees - do you think that would be a fair deal?”  
Flattered and pleased, Nicola thought this would be a great idea. “But when do you think you’d be able to sail her? And what would Mum think?” She was already guiltily aware that her mother might be slightly resenting the loss of her husband’s company during this period of leave.  
Geoff smiled, wryly. “You never know, I might be able to persuade Pam to come out with me. Not that she didn’t always prefer her mode of transport to have four legs. I’m afraid I always disliked horses as much as she disliked boats so it was rather a case of never the twain shall meet.. But we’re looking for a safe, sea-worthy boat, not some flighty racing dinghy, so maybe I can talk her round..”  
“I didn’t know you didn’t like riding?” said Nicola, privately delighted that she should share a secret fear with her father. “But you did sometimes though, didn’t you?”  
“Well, one had to, at Trennels. And I thought it was only fair to Pam. I made her come on enough boats, one way and another.”  
Nicola pondered this new view of her parents, while her father went and paid the bill at the bar. But the issue of money recurred, nagging at her over the next few days. She would need enough funds to pay for food, equipment and harbour fees throughout her trip. And she couldn’t count on getting much of a summer job during her holidays from Oxford if she was going to be spending the time going on lengthy sailing trips. Clearly she was going to have to get some sort of evening or weekend job while at Oxford. People did, after all, although with the part scholarship she had won to get to Oxford, she had been hoping that she wouldn’t.  
At first she thought her father’s suggestion of loaning the boat might be a tactful ruse to help her out. But on the next day’s long drive he confessed that it seemed he was going to have to make a choice soon between retirement or a desk-job. Either way he was going to have more time at Trennels.  
“Pam would be pleased if I took the desk job,” Geoff admitted gloomily. “We could have a little flat in London again. She’d like that. Be better for Peter as well if I stay out of his way while he gets started with this farming business.”  
Nicola felt honoured. Her father was discussing things with her as if she was - well, someone like Rowan. It was funny how she was aware without having to be told, that her father was disappointed in his second son’s choice to leave the Navy, and that staying away and affecting not to be very interested in farming matters was his way of not letting his disapproval show.  
They found the perfect boat that day. Old-fashioned, beautifully built, designed for safety in rough seas rather than speed; Nicola was utterly charmed by the 'Tommy Noddy'.  
“It needs a bit of work,” said the weary-looking middle aged man selling it. “It’s just been sitting here while Dad’s been in hospital. It was his boat, he used to go off for weeks in it. All over he went. He was just home from a trip to Ireland when he had his stroke.”  
“Did he fit up the lockers like this?” asked Geoff, admiring the neat arrangement of little compartments to keep everything from sliding around.  
“Oh yes, he was always tinkering around, trying to improve things. The engine’s new if you’d like to look. We bought it for him for him last year. He was getting a bit slower, he said, thought he’d better give in graciously and make sure he had a reliable engine. The old one wouldn’t start half the time, but he used to sail in and out of harbour mostly.”  
They talked some more for form’s sake but both Geoff and Nicola knew this was the one they wanted. The seller looked suddenly sad. “I reckon the old man would be pleased to know his old boat was taking someone young off on their adventures, as it were. I was a bit worried about selling it, but needs must. Where we live is too far from the sea really. I only came down here this week to clean it up a bit what with the ad going in the paper.”  
They haggled over the price but only gently - it was clear that the Marlows were keen; and the seller was only too pleased to have the boat sold quickly. They shook hands after arranging a day when Nicola would bring the money and officially take ownership.  
Nicola was suddenly overwhelmed by how quickly everything had been decided, and felt herself slightly daunted by the expense and responsibility she was taking on. But turning to take a last look at her boat as they left, she felt her heart stolen away. It was beautiful and it was _hers_. There was her own boat - just waiting for her to come back and sail it away.


	2. Nicola Has A Night Off.

Nicola trod lightly along the narrow Oxford street, feeling like a child who has been unexpectedly told that school is closed for the day. She had turned up for work, gloomily resigned to the usual six hours of washing up, only to find the restaurant flooded. A burst pipe in the flat above had caused the ceiling to collapse, covering the kitchen floor with water and plaster. Her boss, at his most volubly Italian, was trying to mop up the mess. Nicola, who generally quite liked her boss, might have felt sympathetic enough to stay and help even without being paid, if it wasn’t that his two daughters, who normally did the waitressing, and who Nicola didn’t like much, were already standing idly by watching. If they weren’t helping, Nicola didn’t see why _she_ should stay and do their dirty work.  
So now she was unexpectedly free and if she hadn’t grown out of that sort of thing long ago (as she told herself firmly), she might have cart wheeled all the way along the street. She loved Oxford as much as on the first day she’d seen it, all those years ago, looking for Rose. Tonight there was enough drizzle in the air to make the street lamps into balls of blurry orange light, and the pavement glistened. It was a mild night for early December and Nicola pulled her collar up more against the damp than the cold. Tucked into an inner pocket of her coat, where it would stay safely dry, was a letter from Patrick, the envelope bulging in a way that promised a good long letter. She had picked it up on her way in from a lecture but not had to time to read it before rushing back out to her part-time job.  
Patrick’s letters were being particularly amusing at the moment, mainly because Lawrie was lodging with the Merricks in their London house. ‘Back in my _own_ bedroom!’ she had boasted to Nicola, when she first got there. _Honestly_ , Nicola had thought, only _Lawrie_ could leave home for university and end up living back in their childhood home. This unlikely situation had been arranged the previous winter, while Antony Merrick and Pam Marlow were out hunting. On a rather slow, dull day they had left early by tacit consent and hacked home together. The lack of good galloping and jumping had left them both, as they told their respective spouses later, full of surplus jumping powder, making conversation unusually free and easy. Pam found herself wondering how on earth her helpless younger daughter was going to cope living on her own when she went to drama school. Antony admitted that he was worried about Patrick who was living at home while at university in London, and showed no inclination to actually want to move out and live with friends. Antony feared he was too solitary; an only child and with such an interrupted time at school (Pam looked embarrassed, Antony pretended not to notice) he was shutting himself away like a young monk and taking himself far too seriously. What he needs, said Pam flippantly, is a dose of Lawrie. What a good idea, exclaimed Antony. Thus it was that on returning home Antony had to explain to Helen that they were having the youngest Marlow girl to lodge with them from September; a conversation made no easier, thought Antony (quoting Snaffles to himself) by being ‘the wrong side of Beechers and the drink died out of me‘.  
An evening off, a letter from Patrick, and she’d had an essay handed back earlier marked with some comments of rare praise from her tutor; it was turning into one of those perfect days, Nicola thought, looking forward to the rest of the evening.  
Her friends had been planning to go to a club which had live music on a Friday night. As usual they had regretted that Nicola couldn’t go with them, but it was well known that Nick was ‘a bit of a square’ when it came to music, a minor tease that Nicola didn’t really mind. It was true for one thing. At school radios had always been forbidden objects, so contemporary music didn’t exist for Kingscote pupils for large chunks of the year. And it had always been Lawrie who had spent her holidays in her bedroom, with her transistor radio playing in the background while she experimented with make-up or ‘doing’ faces in the mirror. Nicola spent most of her time outside, hawking, sailing or helping on the farm. And if she and Patrick ever holed up in his room on a rainy afternoon, Patrick would always put something classical on the record player if they felt like listening to music.  
Nicola paused, getting her bearings. She must be close to the right road; she just needed to find an alley she could cut through. The next turn looked likely. An open door spilled yellow light into the narrow lane, where a van was parked, and what looked like a drum kit in pieces being unloaded. This looked like the back of the venue, which meant she was probably going to be there much earlier than her friends. She could find a quiet seat and read Patrick’s letter properly, she thought with a wriggle of anticipatory pleasure, as she squeezed her way past the van.  
“ _Nicola!_ ”  
Hearing her name called, Nicola turned, rather surprised... A figure with a guitar case stood silhouetted in the light from the door. As Nicola drew closer it was the resemblance to his sister that brought recognition and she remembered - Philip Scott, who she had met once in the spring. He seemed a little uncertain, as he said, “Hi. We met after the Bowie concert, with Jan?”  
“Yes, of course,” said Nicola. “I remember.”  
“Oh good,” said Philip, smiling. Privately, Nicola wondered if he really thought anyone ever forgot meeting him, with _that_ face. But she was jolted when he added, “I was hoping I might see you while we were in Oxford. Only Miranda said you didn’t have a phone number, so I thought it would be the most freakishly lucky chance if I did run into you..”  
“No, there’s only the phone in the porter’s lodge and that’s only for emergencies really,” answered Nicola automatically, but her brain was firing questions. _Miranda?_  
“You’ve seen Miranda?” she asked.  
“Sure. A couple of days ago” he said, adding casually, “I’ve met her a few times when I’m seeing Jan. She did say she hadn’t seen you at all this term?”  
“No, well I work on Saturdays and Sundays are hopeless for the trains,” Nicola answered although her thoughts were buzzing and whirring. Miranda had mentioned in her letters that she had ‘bumped into’ Jan once or twice, and that Jan had been ‘quite friendly’. But for Jan’s brother to take it for granted that Jan was often with Miranda seemed to imply much more.. Nicola pushed speculation to the back of her mind to ponder on later, and tried to pay attention to Philip.  
“Are you on your way somewhere?” he was asking.  
“I’m meeting some friends here actually.”  
“So it wasn’t just an amazing coincidence, you walking by”  
“Well it was rather. I was supposed to be working tonight. It was only because there was a flood that I’m not.”  
Philip gently pulled her out of the way of a heavy case that was being carried perilously near her head. “Come in this way then,” he said. “No point going round the front.”  
She followed him into a cramped, bare dressing room, currently full of half-unpacked equipment. A figure whose face could hardly be seen for the mop of black hair falling over it blocked their way, squatting over a pile of tangled wires.  
“Any chance of you lending a hand, mate, before you start chatting up girls,” said the apparition, before shaking his hair back and winking at Nicola. He had a bony, plain face, which was transformed by a surprisingly sweet smile, as Philip said, “Shut up Dai. This is Nicola,” and he shook her hand. He reminded Nicola of a younger, hairier version of Miranda’s father, which instantly inclined her to like him.  
Dai let them pass, before picking up two huge boxes and carrying them through to the stage. Various wires were being unravelled and they trod with care.  
“I didn’t realise it was going to be you tonight,” admitted Nicola. “Didn’t you have a different name before?” All the boxes scattered over the stage were daubed with the name Ffurnais.  
“Yes, we sort of evolved. People came and went, and Dai and I hooked up with these guys, and by the time we got together we’d changed so much we needed a different name.”  
“Yeah, well, some of us wanted to make music that isn't totally crap and some of us wanted to be rich and famous ,” growled Dai, stopping beside them.  
“So which are you?” asked Nicola.  
Dai and Phil both laughed. “Time will tell I suppose,” said Philip.  
They could see people starting to gather at the bar at the end of the room. “I ought to go and find my friends,” Nicola said, as more equipment was piled up on the stage beside her.  
“You’re not rushing off afterwards, are you?” asked Philip. “We’re on first. I’ll come down and find you afterwards, if that’s ok?” he added.  
“Yes, sure,” said Nicola politely as she jumped down from the stage, not really minding one way or the other. “See you later.”

Nicola’s friends were gratifyingly pleased to see her there unexpectedly, and rather sceptically impressed that she should have come through the stage door entrance.  
“You know the _band?_ ” asked her friend Angela. Angela roomed next door to Nicola, and friendship had started over a conversation about sailing. Angela’s family regularly made the most heroic trips, thinking nothing of voyages to Iceland and back.  
“Well hardly,” answered Nicola honestly. “Just the guitar player. His sister went to my school.”  
“The guitarist!” said Robyn, who was doing the same course as Nicola. She was the real music buff among their group, who spent most of the time when she should have been studying listening to John Peel or reading the NME. Her friends had learnt that a visit to her room would usually involve being made to listen to some obscure and inaccessible new single, played on the record-player which was her most treasured possession.  
“Will you introduce us?” said more than one voice, eagerly. Nicola blinked, bemused. Something very peculiar seemed to have happened to her friends. Normally quite a practical, even staid, group, with quite high levels of common-sense regarding the opposite sex, they were suddenly being foolish and giggly.  
‘Honestly!’ thought Nicola privately, watching Philip on stage. It was true of course that he was quite the most beautiful man she had ever seen in real life, and his absorption on stage with the music he was creating gave him a powerful magnetism even beyond his looks, but even so she felt herself untouched. It was rather like watching Catkin first arrive in their stable yard, being able to appreciate that he was utterly gorgeous but without wanting him in the least herself.  
Luckily her friends had recovered their self-respect by the time the band’s set had ended. It was the sort of venue where the musicians came and drank at the bar too after they had played, so soon, Philip pushed through the crowd and appeared at her side. She dutifully introduced him, and he was charmingly friendly to everyone. The barman appeared immediately at their end of the bar, ready to instantly serve Philip, who dug a battered ten pound note out of his jeans pocket and asked if he could get anyone a drink. Nicola was amused and annoyed in equal measure as whenever one of them had gone to buy drinks they had had to wait endlessly for the barman to deign to notice them.  
Angela, who was interested in languages, asked what Ffurnais meant. “Cauldron,” Philip told her. “It was Dai’s idea.” It wasn’t long before Robyn had Philip deep in conversation about bands and singers who for the most part the others hadn’t heard of. Other people moved in and they all drifted apart slightly in the crowd.  
After a gap while the second band set up, the music started up again and it became too noisy for conversation. Nicola had enjoyed the first set, Philip’s guitar playing and Dai’s voice had been emotive, exciting, pulse-quickening, sometimes plaintive, always interesting. But this second band was just a racket, she thought. She was starting to feel rather hot and tired and bored. Patrick’s letter was still waiting unread in her pocket. She told her friends she was going to call it a night, refused Angela’s offer to come back with her and threaded her way through the crowd.  
“Are you going?” said Philip, catching her up at the door.  
“Yes. I might have work tomorrow, and I’m not all that keen on this,” she said, indicating to the band on stage.  
“Me neither. Can I walk you anywhere?”  
“Oh no, it’s not far…...that is, I don’t mind..”  
“Oh well, as long as you don’t actually _mind_ …” He grinned at her and she couldn’t help grinning back.  
They fell into step along the narrow street. The rain had stopped and there were even patches of clear sky showing as the clouds shredded away.  
“How is Jan?” she asked.  
“Good I think,” he said. “Happy.”  
She would have liked to ask more, but felt that it was probably none of her business. If there was something Miranda wanted to tell her, then no doubt she would eventually.  
“So what do you do for work?” he asked.  
With a grimace she explained, “Mostly washing up. Some chopping vegetables. But mostly washing and drying.”  
He made a sympathetic face. “Pay alright?”  
It wasn’t great but Nicola didn’t feel like admitting that. If anyone had told her in the past that she would willingly do that much washing up for so little money, she would have thought they were mad.  
“I suppose,” she said reluctantly. “It adds up over time which is the whole point really.”  
“Why? What is the point?”  
So she told him about her boat, and her plans for her voyage. He listened attentively.  
“Wow,” he said respectfully, when she had finished. “That sounds awesome.”  
“That’s what I keep telling myself when I feel like I can’t put my hands in another bowl of hot water ever,” said Nicola. “And when the waitresses are screaming at each other because they think the other one’s stolen the best tipping customer. I feel like I can’t face another bowl of spaghetti ever and I used to love it!”  
“How often do you have to go?”  
“Thursday evening, Friday evening and Saturday lunch and dinner.”  
“You’d be better off singing,” said Philip.  
“What? Busking d’you mean?”  
“No. Like tonight.”  
“I couldn’t do that!” said Nicola, uncertain of how much of a tease this was.  
“It doesn’t pay properly really, but it wouldn’t be less than you get for being a kitchen dogsbody. And you only have to sing for an hour or so.”  
“There’s rehearsing and learning songs, though,” said Nicola dubiously.  
“True. But what would you _rather_ do?”  
Nicola thought about it. Her hands were red raw and chapped. She dreaded the nights she had to work, and having to spend Sundays catching up on her essays. She was sick of the boss’s daughters flirting with the customers to get good tips, then pocketing them themselves instead of putting them in the tip pot, so that Nicola constantly lost out.  
“But I couldn’t just get up and sing a whole set anyway. Who would I do it with?” she protested.  
“Me. Or I could put you in touch with someone.”  
“This is silly. You don’t even know that I can sing!”  
“Yes, I do. Jan said so.”  
“At _school_. That’s different. Carols and songs for music exams!” In the Sixth Form Nicola had finally succumbed to the pressure from the Music teacher and Miss Keith combined, and had taken formal singing lessons and grade exams. She had mainly agreed so as to be in solidarity with Miranda who took her music exams seriously.  
“So let me hear.”  
Nicola glanced at him, thinking this joke had gone far enough. He cocked an eyebrow at her.  
“Where?“ she said, meeting his amused look.  
“Here?”  
“Here?” she asked, looking round at the houses that lined the street, all with the closed-in sleepy look of late evening, bed-time lights glowing behind curtained windows.  
“Why not? It’s December. Give them an early carol!”  
Maybe she had had one or two more drinks than usual. Maybe she just wanted to answer the challenge in those glinting grey-green eyes.  
She remembered the cathedral nave with the silent congregation pressing in on her, just as these houses lined this long, straight street. She started to count the paces just as she had then, one, two…...six paces, then  
Once in Royal David’s city…  
She sang the whole verse through, letting her voice soar up, up past the chimney tops, up to where a few stars were showing. And then counted her steps again, waiting. She counted to six again, before turning nervously. She hadn’t expected him to gush, but he ought to say _something…_.  
He was gazing intently at her. “I know loads of songs that would suit you,” he said finally. “Seriously. It’s insane you’re slogging away washing dishes when I know at least two places that would have you on a live music night.”  
They started to walk slowly again. Philip added, practically, “The first night you have to do for free of course, so they can see. But if I talk to them, they’ll definitely give you a chance.”  
Nicola thought about it doubtfully. “It just seems…....a bit unlikely…” she said finally. “Lots of people can sing as well as me. Why should…..”  
“No,” Philip interrupted. “They _can’t_. They really can’t. Hasn’t anyone ever _told_ you?”  
Nicola felt herself go hot, and was glad they were on a dark stretch of road between lamp lights.  
“I don’t know. I’ll think about it,” she said.  
“Well, get in touch as soon as you have. I mean it.”  
Nicola still thought it highly unlikely that she ever could or would do such a thing. So she murmured something noncommittal.  
“Have you got any thing to write with? I’ll give you my number. Just in case,” said Philip.  
She had a stub of a pencil in her coat pocket, but the only paper she could find was Patrick’s unopened letter so, strangely reluctant, she wrote Philip’s number on the back of the envelope.  
“This is where I go in,” she said, as they arrived at her gate.  
“Goodnight then. But I mean it about the singing! Don‘t forget!” he said, watching her go in.  
“Ok. Thanks. Bye” . He stood watching, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets. He had come out of the club without a coat, and he looked suddenly cold with only his T shirt clinging to him. She half turned and waved as she walked away and he raised a hand in a lazy salute. When she glanced round again he was gone.


	3. Christmas Break.

Nicola worked Christmas Eve lunchtime at the restaurant. She was in good spirits, not just because it was Christmas, but because Patrick and Lawrie were coming to drive her home. Patrick’s rich godfather had bought him a car for his last birthday, a dark green Mini, only a few years old.  
The Merricks had returned to Marriot Chase several days previously. But Lawrie had wanted to stay in London for a pre-Christmas party one of her drama school friend’s parents were throwing. As Patrick wrote to Nicola - ‘Pa thinks it would be a simply _terrific_ idea for me for to stay and go to this party which Lawrie is so _kindly_ asking me to, and get my Christmas shopping finished (That’s code for ‘get your mother something nice at least, to make up for being such a permanent disappointment,’) and then drive Lawrie home. So would you like us to come and get you too?’  
Nicola very much _would_ like him to, thank you very much. It would have been lovely to have Patrick to herself for the drive home of course; but after a term apart from Lawrie she was actually looking forward to seeing her more than she would have cared to admit to anyone (least of all Lawrie).  
“I’m glad I’ve got you to navigate the rest of the way,” Patrick remarked as Nicola settled into the front seat beside him, and Lawrie arranged herself with the luggage in the back seat. “Lawrie had us going round and round in circles coming out of London.”  
“The map was all wrong, I _told_ you..” protested Lawrie.  
“Holding it upside down, more like,” replied Patrick. “I know my way around on buses. You only have to remember numbers. But driving one has to pay attention to the actual roads.”  
“So how was work?” Lawrie asked Nicola, and without waiting for an answer said proudly, “Guess what! I made Patrick spaghetti last night!”  
Nicola had actually learnt to make several proper dishes while working at the restaurant, so she said in an indulgent voice, as one talking to a small child, “ _Did_ you? With a sauce as well?”  
“If you count tomato ketchup as a sauce,” said Patrick.  
“And cheese,” pointed out Lawrie.  
“Which _I_ grated. And I suspect the ideal time to remove pasta from the water is _before_ it’s gone all slimy,” said Patrick. Stopped for a red light, he met Nicola’s eye and grinned.  
“It was hardly overdone at all,” Lawrie’s voice grumbled from the back seat. Nicola changed the subject with the ease of experience.  
“So how was the party?” she asked Patrick.  
“Alright,” he said cautiously. “At least there wasn’t any dancing or horrors of that sort. No-one _minded_ if I sat very quietly in a corner.”  
“I thought you talked to quite a few people. You were talking to Paul for ages,” Lawrie said pedantically.  
“Well, he got me started talking about Richard,” said Patrick self-consciously. Pushing the conversation on, he added. “And I got to meet the famous Michael.”  
“Who’s the famous Michael?” asked Nicola.  
“Lawrie’s been going on about him all term. It’s been quite a saga. Shall I tell it or will you?” Patrick teased. Lawrie muttered indistinctly.  
“They were working on a scene in which they had to pretend to kiss. Passionately, of course. And Lawrie complained that it was horrible because he’d been eating cheese and onion crisps. To which he replied that he was sorry that cheese and onion crisps obviously weren’t posh enough for her, or words to that effect. And he’s been amusing himself, but sadly not Lawrie, by bringing tempting morsels in whenever they have that class, and eating them just before the lesson starts.”  
“And we’ve been working on that play _all_ term,” added Lawrie.  
“So it started with pickled onions, I think,” said Patrick, enjoying himself. “ Garlic a few times, obviously. The absolute high point though was the _snails_.”  
“Snails!” said Nicola.  
“Yes, goodness knows where he got them. A little jar of snails in a lovely French vinegar. And he crunched one up right in front of Lawrie, just before the crucial scene…”  
“It’s not fair! Our tutor says I wont be much of an actor if I can’t get over being such a prude and it’s not my fault!” Lawrie burst out indignantly.  
“I think she should retaliate,” said Patrick. “There’s a particularly blue Stilton my Pa’s very fond of.”  
“Ugh!” said Lawrie. “At least we’re doing something else next term.”  
Nicola, amused, glanced from Lawrie to Patrick. Lawrie didn’t seem to have changed much as far as she could tell. Patrick though, she mused, seemed to have a more relaxed, or maybe confident, air about him.  
Patrick hadn’t physically changed much. He had had a late growth spurt towards the end of his teens, so that although he would never be described as tall, he was certainly a respectably average height. He was still slightly built, with a taut, wary set to his shoulders, rather like one of his own hawks. When his head turned, the same stray lock of hair fell forward over his eyebrows.  
“What about the Boxing Day meet?” he asked her. “Are you coming?”  
“I’m going to ask Mum if I can ride Chocbar,” announced Lawrie. “Do you think she might say yes?”  
“I shouldn’t think so for a minute,” retorted Nicola. “She’ll want to go herself.”  
“Ye-es, but, she gets to hunt all winter, and we don’t?”  
“I should think Pa will want to go, but if not, one of you could ride his old boy? And if not, the Reynolds might lend you something. Especially if Peter asks for you,” said Patrick.  
“Peter?” said both twins, as one. “What’s he got to do with it?”  
“Well, I could be wrong but when I came down that weekend for the opening meet Oliver gave me the distinct impression that he and Wendy were getting on _rather_ well.”  
Nicola and Lawrie digested this information reluctantly and silently.  
“Anyway, how about it? The livery stables might have something left too, if you ring as soon as we get back,” suggested Patrick.  
Nicola thought she would rather not, on the whole. She had only ever really enjoyed hunting because of Buster. The idea of going on some random, unknown horse did not appeal at all. Added to her natural disinclination, she had also come across some anti-hunting opinions among her friends at Oxford which had left her with the disquieting sense that possibly, when it came to hunting, her sister Ann might have a point.  
“I don’t think I will,” she said. “I’ll go and keep Buster company instead.”

 

XXXXX

 

Boxing Day dawned bright and cold. Nicola walked down to Marriot Chase, just in time to see Patrick and his father, both looking immaculate in their best hunting gear, riding out of the stable yard. Sellars, seeing them off, handed Nicola a lead rope and said, “Fetch Buster in to a stable if you’ve come to see him. They might run this way and we don’t want the old man doing himself a mischief in the paddock when he hears them.”  
Buster pricked his ears and whinnied when he saw her at the orchard gate. She met him halfway as he picked his way across the frosty grass. He snuffled eagerly at the pocket where she kept polos, and she let him have one. “You can have the rest in the stable,” she told him, as she clipped the lead-rope on to his head-collar. He followed her willingly and she deliberately dawdled slowly to allow for his stiff old legs.  
Sellars was wheeling out his ancient bicycle to go and see the meet. He told her to make a bit of a fuss of Buster so that he didn’t wonder where everyone else had gone. So Nicola led Buster into the stable that had been left ready for him, and slowly fed him all the polos, one by one. Even when all the polos were gone Buster remained gratifyingly close, pressing his head against her chest while she gently scratched the top of his neck.  
She picked knots out of his mane with her fingers and kissed him secretly under his forelock. With Buster softly whuffling at her, she felt a sudden and most uncharacteristic wave of longing for times past, for the summer when she was thirteen; when Buster was still pretending not to feel his age, when Patrick had never met Ginty, when the Sprog was still learning to fly. She felt an unexpected weight of unshed tears behind her eyes and buried her face briefly in his long mane. “This is silly,” she told him reprovingly, as if it was all his fault that she was being so foolish.  
Finding an old currycomb she rubbed him gently free of mud, and then brushed out his mane and tail till they hung smoothly in their full glory. “There, you look lovely.” With his long, black forelock almost covering his face he reminded her of Philip’s singer friend, Dai. Which reminded her uneasily of Philip’s offer. She was sure it wasn’t worth worrying about because he could hardly have been serious about it, but all the same, the thought popped up and niggled at her from time to time and wouldn’t be forgotten. She sighed, and neatly smoothed Buster’s forelock to a tidy point between his eyes. Then she went to fetch him some more hay to fill his rack.  
Tyres could be heard on the gravel beyond the stable yard and a car horn beeped. Peter, come to give her a lift down to the meet. He might be a good person to ask for an opinion, she thought, but then, knowing his own former ability to get out of doing his share of the washing up, he would probably just tell her she was insane not to jump at the chance of doing something else. Which, when she mentioned it, was exactly what he said.

XXXXX

In the end, the decision was made for her. She returned to Oxford to work both shifts on New Year’s Eve. But in the first week of January her boss broke the news to her that his wife’s cousin’s son was coming to stay and he’d had to promise to find him a job. So there wasn’t a space there for Nicola any more. Looking genuinely regretful, he slipped a bonus into her last pay packet. He knew it was a bad time of year to find casual work.  
Nicola characteristically tried to see the best in the situation. Her grant and her part-scholarship paid for all her actual needs, and she still had two and a half years to save up for her voyage. Her studies would have her undivided attention for a while at least. And maybe she could use one of her suddenly free Saturdays to go up to London and see what Miranda was up to.


	4. A Day In London.

Miranda met Nicola at the station on a raw January Saturday morning. At first Nicola couldn’t see her in the crowd, and then an elegantly dressed, glamorous woman detached herself from the swirl of faces and cried “Nick!” They hugged briefly. Nicola felt decidedly ‘studenty’ in her old jeans and parka; whereas Miranda looked like a model in an exclusive catalogue wearing a ‘casual weekend outfit’. The suede jacket, the high-heeled boots, even the designer jeans displayed the immaculate tailoring of expensive clothes.  
After a moment’s odd politeness in which they told each other what ages it had been, and how nice their hair looked that way, and asked how the Shop/Oxford was, they shrugged off the stiffness of temporary unfamiliarity and fell into their old easy ways.  
“We’ll walk this way,” said Miranda. “I want to show you something.” As Nicola followed Miranda obediently, Miranda added peremptorily, “So tell me all about Oxford.”  
Miranda might just as well have asked ‘so tell me all about the sea‘, thought Nicola, wondering where to start. “Well, it’s quite different from school. I mean, at tutorials, you get to talk properly about things. As if you’re an actual grown-up, with ideas.”  
“Well, so you are,” said Miranda, amused.  
“Yes, but it’s like you’re studying things because you want to, not because you have to. Apart from essays of course.” Nicola had found her first term at Oxford to be like living in an exciting, new world, but found it hard to explain to Miranda just how exhilarating she was finding it.  
“Only, I’m rather thinking _I_ might not be going next year,” said Miranda.  
“Oh Miranda, why ever not?” said Nicola, dismayed on her friend’s behalf.  
“Because I can’t see the point. I’m learning so much on the job, and three years away just seems - unnecessary. I’ll have learnt twice as much just getting on with it.”  
Nicola frowned doubtfully, “But there’s all the people you meet, and the things that go on…”  
“I’m meeting people here,” Miranda pointed out. “And this is London after all. It’s not as if the Shop was in the middle of nowhere.”  
Miranda came to an abrupt halt in front of a shop. “And there’s, well, _this._ ”  
Nicola looked. It seemed to be a rather shabby ladies’ dress shop, with some abandoned looking mannequins wearing dated fashions behind a dusty window.  
“I don’t get you. What am I supposed to be looking at? Do we go in like Mr Benn…?”  
“It’s to let!” said Miranda, indicating the sign which Nicola had not noticed. “The shop and the flat above. So imagine this as a small art gallery, all cleaned up and repainted. Full of carefully chosen prints and original paintings by young artists. This could be mine!”  
“But what about _the_ Shop?” said Nicola. They started to walk slowly on down the street.  
“I’d still be involved with the Shop, of course. I’ll be working with Dad and learning from him all the time. But the reason he thought I should go to University was because he didn‘t want me to feel I had to just leave school and do the Shop for ever. But this could be _my_ thing. It could be part of the business, but it would be the bit I run.”  
Miranda’s eyes sparked as she enthused about her idea. “And there’s the flat above. I could have it done up and live there.”  
“Oh yes!” chimed in Nicola, who hadn’t been able to share her friend’s enthusiasm for the shop, but saw all the appeal of one’s own flat.  
“Not that I mind living at home,” added Miranda. “But if I had my own place I could have someone to stay. Or live with me even.”  
Nicola twigged. “You mean Jan?” she asked, and was answered by Miranda‘s instantly self-conscious look. “She did once say she hated being shut up with hordes of females.”  
She hadn’t intend to be so blunt, but Miranda deflated, visibly. “I wouldn’t be a horde. I’d only be _one_ female.”  
They were both awkwardly silent for a moment. “You’re right, of course,” Miranda said, sadly. “I only get to be with her at all by pretending it’s all terribly casual and I don’t really mind one way or the other.”  
Nicola could think of nothing to say. She felt badly ill-equipped by her own lack of experience, to offer either consolation or advice.  
Miranda backtracked suddenly, “How did you know anyway? About Jan?”  
“I didn’t,” answered Nicola, honestly. “Only something Philip Scott said in passing made me think…?”  
“Oh, you saw Philip? He’s lovely, isn’t he? I must say, I never quite saw the point of having masses of relations like you, but it must be nice to have a big brother.”  
Nicola, who would long ago have denied the existence of a family liking list, had to agree that her brothers were definitely a good thing, whereas she could do very well without at least some of her sisters.  
“I thought we could eat here,” said Miranda, at the doorway of a smart looking coffee bar. “Are you hungry for lunch yet? Because we could just have coffee if you’d rather, and then go on.”  
They settled into a corner table where they could spread out and be comfortable. “It is starting to feel like a long time since breakfast,” admitted Nicola, looking at the menu. She noticed gloomily that a sandwich and a coffee here was going to cost more than the equivalent of a good slap-up meal in Oxford.  
“By the way, it’s my treat today,” said Miranda.  
“Oh no, “ started Nicola, but Miranda waved her down.  
“I’m earning and you’re not. You can do the same for me when you’ve written your best-selling book.”  
“When am I going to do that?” asked Nicola, charmed.  
“When you’ve sailed round the Med looking at your gods and monsters, I should think.”  
“I don’t suppose anyone would be remotely interested…”  
“Of course they would. People love that sort of thing. A bit of travel, a bit of history, a bit of adventure. It saves them having to do it themselves. Just make sure you keep a good diary on your trip and it’ll write itself.”  
“Strictly speaking, it’s a log not a diary on ship..”  
“There you go. The Log Book of Captain N. Marlow: Adventures in an Ancient Land. I’d read it.”  
A waitress appeared and took their order. “So,” said Nicola once she had gone. “Tell me about Jan. You must have been seeing quite a bit of her?”  
“Yes. Lots. It’s been ….well, I want to say wonderful, but then I’m never sure where it’s going. _If_ it’s going. If it’s even a _thing._ ”  
“So start from the beginning. How did you first meet?”  
“She came into the Shop actually. Said she was passing and just popped in to say hello. _Well!_ Anyway we went for a coffee with me pretending this happened all the time and I wasn’t so excited I could hardly breathe.”  
“Oh, Miranda!”  
“I _know_. Only then we were talking about things generally and she said something about not playing much tennis any more - you remember she used to play quite seriously at school? Anyway, we’re members of a tennis club only Mum and Dad hardly ever go, and I don’t much either because most of the people I used to play with are away travelling or at Uni - which is all perfectly true as it happens. So I said she should come and have a game sometime, and she said why not, and we did. We went a couple of times a week, when I’d finished in the Shop, until the evenings got dark. And then we’d sometimes have a drink, and then we started going to a film or a play now and then. And we go to see Philip play whenever he’s gigging.”  
“That all sounds good,” said Nicola.  
“It is. It really is. Only I don’t know what she thinks we are. And I don’t want to push it.”  
Nicola looked enquiry.  
“She suggests a lot of the things we do. So she must _want_ to be with me. But she’s had boyfriends you know, she casually mentions them in conversation odd times. So then I think that’s it, I’m completely on the wrong track here. Then another time she’ll look at me, or say something, and I think there really is something there, something more than just being friends.” Miranda paused. “Do you think I could just be imagining it because that’s what I want to be true?”  
“I don’t know,” said Nicola. Feeling rather thrown by the whole conversation, but wanting to offer comfort if she could, she said slowly, “But I think …. Well, it’s Jan isn‘t it…she wouldn’t …. I mean, if she knew that you felt that way and she didn’t she’d squash the whole thing super-sharpish. Wouldn’t she?”  
“Yes. I suppose she would,” said Miranda, “Or maybe the whole thing’s hopeless.” She sighed gustily. “I just feel torn up inside - all the time. I want to know.” She looked down at the paper napkin she had fiddled into a ball as she talked, and embarrassedly tried to smooth it out again. “Anyway. I didn’t mean to spill all that. Enough about me,” and rather brightly, gave the conversation a hasty shove. “So are you looking for another job now?”  
“Well, actually,” said Nicola, relieved by the change of subject. “Philip said I should try singing. He said I should get in touch with him about it. Do you think he would have meant it?”  
“Well, we could go round and ask him while you’re here. If you’ve got time before you have to meet Lawrie?”  
“Just call in? Oh no, I wouldn’t want to do that!”  
“Why not? It’s only a couple of stops on the tube.”  
“What if he was busy? And if he hadn’t meant it, or he’d forgotten all about it, it could be - well - awkward?”  
“All the more reason to do it then. It’ll be a good test of whether he really was serious.”  
“Maybe. But I still think I should ring first.”  
“Ok. We’ll do that. But I shouldn’t think he’d mind, in the least. How long have you got anyway?”  
“Ages. The Merricks invited me to dinner when they heard I was coming so I don’t have to get there till teatime earliest.”  
“And will Patrick be there?” asked Miranda, who had met Patrick on a previous visit to Trennels.  
“Oh yes,” said Nicola. “At least, I assume he is.” She realised uncomfortably she’d be both surprised and hurt if he wasn’t.  
Miranda caught the waitress’s eye and asked for their bill. Nicola secretly admired the naturally imperious manner in which Miranda attracted good service. Or maybe it was just the generous tip Miranda left, she thought wryly, wishing customers had tipped like that when she was working in the restaurant.  
They found a phone-box in the street, and Nicola dialled the number. A sleepy Welsh voice answered, which temporarily confused her.  
“Oh hi. Um, it’s Nicola Marlow. Um, we met in Oxford. Only, I wanted to speak to Philip, and I’m here in London today, and I was wondering if I could call in. If he’s in. If he’s not busy..”  
“Hang on,” said the voice, and not noticeably moving away from the phone, shouted, “Phil! Do you want to see Nicola from Oxford?” After a brief pause, the voice said, “Yeah, come on over.”  
“Was that Dai?” said Miranda, as Nicola put the phone back on its cradle.  
“Yes. Do they share a flat?” Nicola asked, as they walked towards the nearest tube station.  
“Yes. Dai’s funny. Completely chaotic though. Phil’s reasonably domesticated. Jan said he had to do a lot at home, when their mother was ill....” Miranda stopped abruptly, looking suddenly worried. “Look, forget I said that, will you. Jan hardly ever talks about home and I shouldn’t have repeated that..”  
“Ok,” said Nicola, mildly surprised. Why should they mind anyone knowing that, she thought, and an echo of Rowan’s voice came back to her from years ago. It might not be that tidy…  
To distract Miranda from her perceived blunder, she asked after Esther. She herself received letters (always signed from Daks as well, with a neatly drawn pawprint next to Esther’s tentative x) but Miranda met up with her occasionally.  
“She seems quietly happy. Still living at home of course, but she’s looking for a flat to rent. It’s a quiet time of year for gardening, I gather. But she’s got quite a few regular people. And she’s been doing extra things too, feeding cats and watering plants when people are away. And there’s one person she goes to, who has the most enormous conservatory attached to their house, so she’s in there gardening happily with the rain battering down outside…” Miranda paused, thinking. “She’s seems different to how she was at school. She’s lost that slightly anxious look she always had.”  
They passed the short tube ride happily discussing other school acquaintances. It turned out neither of them had heard anything from Tim - “I think Lawrie does _sometimes_ ,” said Nicola doubtfully - but Miranda had bumped into Pomona, who was at St Martin’s, a few times - “with her hair dyed raven black, can you imagine!” said Miranda, delightedly.  
They emerged from the Underground station to feel the first spatters of rain. Lights were already coming on in windows as the short winter day drew in, colder and darker as the rain started to fall properly.  
“It’s not far,” said Miranda, and Nicola hurried after her. They both broke into a run as the rain became icy rods battering their heads.  
“I don’t know how you run in heels,” shouted Nicola as they pelted along the pavement.  
Miranda laughed, and pulled up to a walk. “They wouldn’t quite do for the Cricket final, would they? Mind you, I’ve forgotten how to wear flats these days.”  
Miranda stopped at a shabby door beside a launderette, and knocked hard. After a moment it jerked open.  
“Two drowned rats,” said Philip. “Come in.” He led them up a narrow stairway, which turned a corner and opened into a large room. Nicola was struck first by the line of guitars along one side of the room, then by the sheer number of records, filling every available shelf and flat space. A scattered pile circled a record player and others were propped up against any spare inch of wall.  
Philip produced a towel and tossed it to Nicola. She briefly rubbed her face and hair dry and passed it to Miranda.  
He wore faded, very frayed jeans and a rather holey jumper. “Dai’s just gone to buy some clean cups. Have a seat,” he said, waving towards a battered leather sofa. He regarded her appraisingly from sleepy sea-green eyes. “Does this mean we’re on?” he asked.  
“Yes,” said Nicola. “If you honestly think we can earn money doing it.”  
“Absolutely,” he said.  
Miranda perched beside Nicola on the sofa.  
“We need to choose some songs to start with,” said Philip thoughtfully. “Any you’d like to do?”  
“She’d better do ‘A Sailor’s Life’,” said Miranda flippantly.  
Philip’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Perfect. Any more, Miranda?”  
“I don’t think I actually know that one,” said Nicola.  
“I’ll lend it to you. And some others. You can learn the tunes and the words and see which ones you feel like you could do,” said Philip, picking a record at random off the shelf.  
“I don’t have a record player,” said Nicola.  
“You don’t?” said Philip blankly.  
“I could probably borrow a friend’s though,” said Nicola hastily, as Philip was looking at her as if she’d grown an extra head.  
He rummaged through the shelf of records, selecting some, looking at others before sliding them back, and piling the chosen ones on the carpet.  
“Um, I do have to go back on the train,” said Nicola, as the pile grew higher.  
“Oh,” Philip frowned a little, and sat down on the floor to sort through the pile again. When he had reduced it to about a third of its size, he said “That ok?”  
“Oh yes,” said Nicola. “If you’re sure?”  
“Of course. Then we need somewhere to practise. Is it any good where you live?”  
“Oh no, I couldn’t. I mean, it would disturb everyone and you wouldn’t be allowed..”  
“No worries. I’ll have a word with a few people. I can’t contact you, can I?”  
“No. Shall I ring you?”  
“Yes You’ll have to,” he said, adding, “Make sure you do!”  
The street door banged, and steps ascended. Dai appeared, a web of raindrops caught in his hair, bearing a Woolworths plastic bag and a family box of biscuits.  
“We have mugs,” he announced. “And we have biscuits!”  
Philip uncoiled himself from the carpet, and removed two stripey red mugs from the bag. “Tea, anyone?”  
Neither Miranda nor Nicola could refuse after seeing the drenched state Dai was in. So they had mugs of strong hot tea, made by Philip, and all the best biscuits out of the box.  
Philip picked up one of the guitars, and perched on a chair, started gently picking out a tune. There was something about playing an instrument that suddenly elevated him into something more than he looked, thought Nicola. Just as Patrick with a hawk on his fist became more than just Patrick, the boy next door, so Philip with a guitar became more than just a scruffy, if good looking, layabout.  
“D’you know this one?” asked Philip, catching her eye. Regretfully Nicola shook her head, although she felt she ought to - it was the sort of beautiful tune which awoke an answering echo in her mind as if she had known it all along. “Oh _Nick_!“ said Miranda. Philip simply smiled, and tried another one, but she couldn’t place that one either. He shook his head sadly in mock disgust, and launched into ‘Itchycoo Park’ which she was relieved to recognise. Dai started singing the words, and first Nicola and then Miranda caught the mood and joined in with the chorus.

When it was time to go, Philip packed Nicola’s pile of records into the empty Woolworth’s bag. As an afterthought, he asked, “Do you read music?” and as she could, he added a couple of books of music to the bag. “Try and pick half a dozen you like,” was his parting instruction.  
Miranda walked with her to the bus stop. It was one of those rare occasions when the bus appears instantly, and Nicola had to climb on board without much of a goodbye. As usual, she climbed straight up to the top deck. Catching a last glimpse of Miranda through the rain streaked window she thought regretfully of all the things that they hadn’t got round to talking about. And she’d meant to ask Miranda what the song was that she’d gone ‘Oh Nick’ about. Even though they’d spent the day as comfortably together as if they hadn’t just been apart for six months, she had a sad sense of their lives moving irrevocably apart.  
She found a spare seat, and rested the Woolworth’s bag on her lap, with an arm round it to protect the records from the elbow of the person next to her who leant clumsily into her space with every swing of the bus.. She decided that if she was asked about them at the Merricks, she would pass them off as simply some records loaned to her by a friend and say no more. It was entirely possible that Lawrie was now mature enough not to have her nose put out of joint by the probability that her sister would be getting paid to perform in public before she was. But on the other hand, until she actually _needed_ to, there was no point in having that particular conversation.


	5. Nicola Does Her Homework.

“Nicola,” said Robyn. “How can you possibly own a _boat_ and not a record player?”  
Nicola had to admit that it did sound a bit mad put like that. Robyn, while quite willing to lend her the use of her own precious record player had wanted to know why and what for.  
“So this friend who’s going to be playing - is he the one out of Ffurnais?”  
Nicola nodded.  
“They’re seriously good. I saw them again in the holiday.” Robyn looked curiously through the stack of records Nicola had brought. “You’re going to be singing all of these?”  
“Only some. The ones I like.”  
“You’ll have to let me come and watch then, when you do it.”  
Nicola, who had been hoping _not_ to have an audience of curious friends, didn‘t really see how she could refuse. Robyn, loaded up with notebooks and pencil case, paused on her way out of the door and said, “I’ll be in the library for ages now, so take as long as you like. And I don’t mind you using it anytime, honestly. But you know you can get second-hand ones quite cheap, if you wanted one. People put them in the back of the paper. If you don’t mind second-hand?”  
“Gracious no. Why should I?” answered Nicola, surprised.  
“Oh, well. No reason. I’ll leave you to it then,” said Robyn and departed.  
Nicola decided to follow a system of playing each song once, just listening, and then a second time while following the lyrics, if she had them. This worked reasonably well, and she made a ‘keep’ pile of those that she felt like singing along to on the second listen. Some of the records were LPs which slowed her down, and she made notes as to which tracks she liked.  
On the whole, she thought, it was a good and interesting thing that so much music existed that she had never been aware of before, and she did rather relish the idea that there _was_ so much more to discover. However, she couldn't help thinking that it would be a lot more comfortable to come upon it sitting on her own beanbag in her own neat and tidy room; rather than cross-legged on Robyn’s tatty rug, surrounded by Robyn’s scattered possessions and disorganised mess.

So when Robyn caught up with her coming out of a lecture, two days later, and told her about a shop she had discovered which had some old record players for sale, she was instantly enthusiastic. It was on the outskirts of town, so they caught a bus and then walked.  
Robyn had become part of Nicola’s circle of acquaintance initially as a friend of a friend, and they didn’t know each other well, their main friendships being with other people. She had a direct, slightly sarcastic sounding manner, which made Nicola feel wary around her.  
“So where is this boat of yours now then?” she asked curiously.  
“It’s in a berth at Yetland Cove - it’s near home.”  
“Which is …..?”  
“Oh. Dorset. Near Wade Abbas.”  
“I went to Dorset once. On holiday.” Robyn said the word ‘holiday’ rather gloomily. Nicola felt compelled to ask sympathetically, “Didn’t you enjoy it then?”  
“Actually, to be completely fair, it wasn’t the _worst_ holiday we ever went on. It didn’t rain from the moment the tent went up, to the moment we drove away seven days later. Which is what happened in some places. Only, when you’ve got teacher parents, holidays aren’t exactly fun, if you know what I mean. What we wanted was the funfair at Weymouth, and what we got was the Tolpuddle Martyrs.” Robyn made a rueful face, and then laughed at herself. “The joys of family holidays, eh?”  
Nicola made a sympathetic grimace. But as the only ‘holiday’ she’d ever been on with either parent had ended up with her, Ginty and Peter held at gunpoint on an lighthouse in the middle of the sea, she didn’t feel particularly ready to share stories.  
“Dad wasn’t often on leave during the school holidays,” she said cautiously. “Mostly we just did things at home.”  
The shop Robyn had found was just the sort of junk shop Nicola loved. Full of dusty piles of mostly worthless furniture and unwanted ornaments, it still held out the potential promise of buried treasure. Among the once-loved ‘Presents From Clacton‘, and china ladies demoted from pride of place on someone’s mantelpiece, house-cleared to this desolate end, might just be the most amazing find. As it happened, there wasn’t. But there were three old record players to choose from.  
“You’ll need to change the needle, I should think. But apart from that they’re alright,” said Robyn, inspecting them. Nicola took Robyn’s advice and bought the one that she considered the best.  
They took turns carrying it home. By the time they got back to Nicola’s room, both their coats were grimed with all the dirt that had rubbed off the case as they carried it. Robyn was disproportionately impressed by the fact that Nicola owned a clothes brush, which she handed to Robyn to clean off her coat.  
“Must be the Navy upbringing,” she said, reminding Nicola uncomfortably of Tim. “Keeping everything ship-shape.” Nicola shrugged irritably, having hoped her days of being teased about the Navy were over. The clothes brush had simply been one of her grandmother’s dreary presents, given one Christmas after complaining that 'the child is always covered in that animal’s hair’, meaning Tessa.  
She wasn’t entirely sure if she liked Robyn all that much. But when Robyn disappeared off to her own room to fetch an old record that they could use to test the player rather than risk scratching one of the ones she had been lent, she had to acknowledge that Robyn had the right sort of practical kindness.  
Robyn returned with the past Christmas’s number one, an unwanted present, saying that she couldn’t stand it, and that her sister must have been mad to think that she would like it. She was rather sorry when the record player worked perfectly and failed to damage the record in any way. “Oh well,” she sighed. “I’ll carry on using it as a coaster then. Now. Let’s put something good on.”  
She picked up a record at random, which happened to be at the top of Nicola’s pile of rejects. “Well, this is very appropriate,” she said, looking at ‘A Sailor’s Life’. “Are you going to do this one?”  
“I’m not all that keen on it, so no, I don’t think so,” said Nicola.  
“Why don’t you like it?”  
“It’s just the words,” said Nicola reluctantly. “It’s maudlin.”  
“I’d have thought it’d be right up your street,” said Robyn, faintly teasing.  
Irritated again, Nicola tried to explain, “But it’s not _like_ that, not in real life.”  
“What do you mean? Doesn’t your mother worry when your father’s away at sea?”  
“No! At least…” Nicola tried to order her muddled thoughts. “Maybe she does, but she wouldn’t let it _show_. She wouldn’t go on about what a sad life it was and feel sorry for herself and go moping around after him.” Various remarks Giles had made in the past about Navy wives having to ‘get on with it’ replayed in her mind, but she didn’t think she could sound them out loud without Robyn looking even more sceptical than she already was.  
“I suppose you get Service-issue stiff-upper-lips when you marry into the Navy,” Robyn said. “But leaving the Navy out of it then, what about just ordinary seamen. Like fishermen?”  
Frowning slightly, and to give herself time to think, Nicola slid the record on to the turntable and lowered the needle. Two men from the fishing fleet that worked from Yetland had been drowned a few years ago. It had happened during term-time, and the first Nicola had known of it was when begging some old papers from Mrs Bertie to help light the fire in the Shippen. The story had caught her eye as she was about to ball up a ripped sheet of the local newspaper. They were only boys really; one had been caught in a rope and dragged under the water, and the other had died trying to save him. She had been touched at the time by the heroism of the one who had died trying to help the other; it occurred to her now that they might both have had girlfriends, wives even. As she tried to picture those unknown girls their faces in her imagination looked rather like Rowan’s on the beach that time, with the remnants of Surfrider shattered in the breaking waves. And Rowan had been _relieved_ …… What if that agonising weight of worry and fear had only been ended by finding out that the worst had actually happened?  
Listening to the music, she felt her way into the song, seeing how she could make it hers, and was startled at the end, when Robyn, apparently miles away, said cheerfully, “Will he play all that psychedelic stuff at the end, do you think?”

 

XXXXXX

 

Learning words to songs came easily to Nicola, so after a couple of spare evenings she decided she knew enough to be going on with, and it was time to contact Philip. When she first tried to call him though, no-one answered the phone. Having bothered to come out on a cold night, with a pile of coins lined up on the ledge in front of her, she thought she might as well make use of being there by ringing Miranda. Usually they only wrote, stamps being cheaper than calls.  
Miranda’s father answered, and sounding pleased to hear from her but diffident about wasting either her time or her money, handed her straight over to Miranda.  
“Nick! Is anything up?”  
“Oh no. Only I’m at the phonebox, and Philip’s not in, so I thought I’d save carrying all my pennies home..”  
“Try ringing him in the daytime. They’re out most evenings. How’s it going - have you learned all your songs?”  
“Well, a few. Miranda - what was that song he played that day? The one you thought I should know?”  
“What song? Oh, I remember! It was ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’.”  
“So why should I have known it?”  
“Oh Nick - it’s properly romantic, and you didn’t even know what he was playing! It must have been ever so flattening.”  
“I don’t see why, just because I haven’t heard of something…”  
“Yes, but if he likes you..”  
“Oh surely not,” said Nicola stoutly.  
“I’m sure he does, you know.”  
“Really?” Nicola was torn between disbelief and mild alarm. “What should I do?”  
“Nothing. Unless you actually want to?”  
“No. I don’t feel anything - like that.”  
“Really not? Well, you don’t _have_ to do anything. It’s not your problem, is it?”  
Miranda’s voice was suddenly sad, and Nicola was aware that the conversation had switched and become about someone else.  
“Miranda?”  
There was the faintest of appreciable pauses. “I wouldn’t worry about it, if I were you,” said Miranda, briskly moving on. “Did I tell you I saw Lawrie the other night? We were having coffee after a film, and she and a load of her friends trooped in. She looks quite different though - I hardly recognised her.”  
“Different how?”  
“Masses of make-up for starters. And dressed up - well, let’s just say you’d know they were drama students just from looking at them. They were being fairly loud. We didn’t stay long after they came in.”  
“That makes me so glad I’m a _long_ way away,” said Nicola. “And how’s your shop idea going?”  
“It’s not at the moment. I had a long talk with Dad about it. He did think it was a good plan. But he says we should think about it in a year or so, rather than now. Which makes sense, of course.”  
“There’s still a chance you could go to University. Isn’t there?”  
“No,” said Miranda decisively. “I can’t see myself changing my mind about that.”  
Which was quite, quite mad, thought Nicola, walking back after they’d hung up. There was a gentle early evening bustle of students going to and fro. Light spilling out from doors and windows indicated clubs, meetings, parties, even study and all-night essay writing. The ancient buildings which surrounded her gleamed softly in the lamplight. She herself couldn’t imagine missing out on all _this_ for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Christmas no.1 which Robyn hates is here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ  
> and A Sailor's Life is here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szrGtFxtWXU  
> There are about a zillion versions of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, but you do have to imagine it being played by a beautiful young man!


	6. In Rehearsal.

Philip had found them a room above a pub to rehearse in. The bottle-blond, middle-aged landlady let them in when they knocked on the back door, and showed them to a deserted room full of stacked up plastic chairs and cash-and-carry boxes of crisps. It was as cold and cheerless as only an empty function room in the middle of the afternoon can be. Dust motes floated in the wintry light that filtered through the dirty windows. But Joy, the landlady, was unexpectedly nice, bringing them mugs of strong tea before they started. Later she came and sat at the back of the room, with her accounts book, telling them not to mind her. Later still, they learned from drabs of conversation that she had once been a singer herself. Philip had the rare quality of making everyone he talked to feel like they were the most interesting person in the room. Which was lovely, thought Nicola, watching him listen to Joy tell an anecdote from her past as a backing singer in the fifties, but would be decidedly disconcerting if she _was_ keen on him.  
She soon came to the conclusion that Miranda was wrong about Philip having any interest in her beyond her voice. There were no secret glances or signs. No resentment at other people being around, no obvious attempts to be entirely on his own with her. And when they were alone together rehearsing, all he seemed to care about was the music. She was relieved by this, only she couldn’t help thinking, that if Miranda had read this all wrong, then maybe she was getting other things wrong too.  
She enjoyed their rehearsal sessions far more than she had expected. Philip reminded her rather of Dr Herrick, with his exacting determination to get the songs just right, but without ever becoming impatient. He could be gently remorseless with her, making her sing the same line over and over until she sang it just right, when with a quick smile that seemed to say ‘See?’ he would play on to the end of the song.  
She found she was enjoying singing far more than she ever had at school. She liked the story-telling qualities of the songs they had chosen, compared with some of the classical songs she had learned at school. She had found some of them boring, she realised now, because they seemed to spend ages saying the same thing over and over, usually about being in love with some goop, as Lawrie would say.  
So having been nervous at first, she soon felt happily lulled into a sense that she could very well go on doing this forever. She was jolted out of this when Philip announced that they were doing their first performance the following Wednesday. Dismayed, Nicola realised that she _was_ actually going to have to do this in front of a crowd of strangers. It was a regular live music night, at the pub where they rehearsed, Philip told her. It was only going to be a short set, before the main band came on. They would do a mock run-through tonight. It would only be a mid-week audience, so nothing to worry about, he said.  
Feeling more anxious than she would have cared to admit, Nicola launched into ’Matty Groves’ all wrong, too hard and fast.  
“No,” said Philip, stopping playing. “You’re not singing to the back of a theatre. They’re going to be right here in front of you. You’re drawing them in with the first line, sucking them into the story. It’s like, ‘are you sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin?’ So - softly -” He played again, and Nicola relaxed and sang it perfectly.  
They played through six more songs, hardly stopping except for one or two minor corrections.  
“There, “ said Philip. “You’re going to be brilliant. Like I said, nothing to worry about. You just have to sing, and let the words do their work.”  
Nicola nodded gloomily. She had never suffered from stage fright at school, but she thought a real audience would be expecting a lot more than an audience of fond parents at a school performance.  
“Miranda and Jan have been having a debate about whether you’d want them to come,” added Philip. Nicola looked at him, surprised at having been the subject of anyone‘s discussion. “Miranda thinks they should come and support but Jan says you’d much rather _not_ have hordes of people you know there watching?”  
Nicola couldn’t help inwardly smiling at the way each of them was clearly arguing for what they themselves would prefer in the circumstances. “I don’t suppose it matters really,” she said. “I think Robyn is going to bring along loads of people anyway, so it’s not as if there’s going to be no-one I know there.”  
“Jan was in a play once that she wouldn’t let me come to,” Philip said absently.  
“The Tempest,” said Nicola automatically.  
“That’s the one. Were you in it too?”  
Nicola could quite see why Jan hadn’t wanted Philip to come, imagining his effect on a bunch of Thirds and Fourths. “No. I was supposed to be but then Lawrie - my sister - didn’t want to do Ariel.”  
“What, so _you_ weren’t allowed to be in it?”  
“Oh, no. It wasn’t that. Lawrie doesn’t - can’t - sing, so I was supposed to be singing her songs. Then when Miranda got Ariel there was no need.”  
“Miranda was Ariel? How did that work? I thought Ariel was supposed to hate Prospero? Or was that before..?”  
“No. She made Ariel quite sad in places actually,” said Nicola, recollecting.  
“I can imagine. But why can’t your sister sing?” said Philip, changing tack. “I thought you said you were twins?”  
Nicola shrugged. “We are. But I can’t act like her either.”  
Philip said, “That’s funny. It’s like you were being made in a factory and the machine got stuck and dropped two lots of singing talent on you.”  
Nicola, diverted by an instant image of a tiny Lawrie on a conveyor belt, wailing that she had missed that last dollop and it wasn’t _fair_ …., entirely missed the compliment and forgot to blush or look awkward. Philip noticing, smiled.  
“So what was Jan like as Prospero?” he asked.  
“She was _good_. Really good. It’s a shame you didn‘t get to see it,” said Nicola.  
“Yes. I could’ve embarrassed her by applauding loudly in all the wrong places,” Philip said. “My mum did that once, at a school concert. She wasn’t even supposed to be there. She must have found the letter and given Dad the slip, left him with the babies. Anyway, there she was, when I went out on the stage, first time I played my new guitar in public. She’d bought that for me too, without Dad knowing, and there'd been a row about that…. Still she was kind of in one of her ‘up’ phases, and she was standing up, whooping and yelling when I finished, with all the other mums and dads looking horribly embarrassed..”  
Nicola winced inwardly in sympathy, imagining the scene happening at her own school. But Philip’s voice telling the story, seemed affectionately reminiscent. “I was embarrassed too. And afterwards some of the others were taking the piss - Christ, you know what dickheads a bunch of thirteen year old boys can be.”  
Nicola didn’t really, but gave a half smile in agreement. Philip continued, “And I was about to get myself severely battered taking them on, which would not have been a very good move, seeing as they were all the football boys, when up walks Adrian, who I hadn’t really known up to then, and shut them all up. He had a way with words even then. Only the thing is, back then I was angry that she’d come and done that, but now I just think - well, that it was nice really. I wish I could tell her now that I’m glad she came and saw me play once and that she was proud.”  
“She didn’t see you play again?”  
“No. It wasn‘t long after that she died.” He had a way of letting his hair fall across his face with a slight flick of his head. He did that now, and absently played a few bars on his guitar.  
Before Nicola could frame the obvious question, he stilled the guitar and said, “So. Next week can you get here early, and we’ll do a quick warm up and run through?”  
“Ok,” said Nicola, relieved. “What should I wear?”  
His eyes flickered over her. “Come as you are, why not?”  
“Like this?” said Nicola, doubtfully, glancing down at her jeans and jumper.  
“Well, you should swap the jumper for a shirt maybe. It’ll be much warmer when we’re downstairs and it’s full of people. But you want to be just natural and comfortable. Don’t dress up.”  
That was a relief, thought Nicola, because she didn’t have anything to dress up in anyway. It was only later, looking through her wardrobe, that the words ‘full of people’ floated back to the top of her mind. This was ridiculous - the idea that customers coming to a pub to hear music would have the least interest in hearing her. It would be better if she just dried up completely and let Philip play solo on the guitar. Still, she told herself gloomily; this time next week it would all be over.  
Another niggling worry drifted around in the back of her mind that week, occasionally nudging into conscious thought. It resolved itself into a need to be careful about what she said to Miranda. She suspected she had been told as much in a throwaway conversation with Philip as Miranda had in months of being with Jan. It seemed unnecessary to keep such a casually told story a secret; but clearly, if there _were_ things that Jan never talked about with Miranda, it would be odd and awkward if she was accidentally hearing them from Nicola.


	7. Nicola Sings.

“Is _that_ how you’re going?” asked Robyn.  
“Why, what’s wrong with it?” asked Nicola, alarmed. “Philip _said_ just to be natural.”  
“Nothing’s wrong with it. But there’s natural, and then there’s _natural_ ,” said Robyn. “Let me do your make-up?”  
“Oh no, it’s alright really,” said Nicola hastily. She didn’t want to end up plastered with the heavy eyeliner look that Robyn went in for.  
“Relax,” said Robyn. “It won’t even look like you’ve got make-up on. Come to my room. It’ll take two minutes, and if you don’t like it you can take it off and I won’t be offended, I promise,” she added coaxingly.  
Nicola submitted reluctantly. She sat uncomfortably on Robyn’s bed, while Robyn brushed and smudged, “Just a smidge of this shadow. Now don’t blink for a minute…”  
It didn’t take long. “ _There!_ ” said Robyn, pleased. Nicola looked anxiously in the mirror. Robyn was right - it didn’t look like she was wearing make-up, but it was, she thought, a prettier version of her own face looking back at her.  
“You can get away with that natural look when you’re good-looking to start with,” said Robyn, with a proprietary air over her handiwork. She turned and rummaged in her wardrobe. “Now - not that there’s anything wrong with the black - but how about this?” She held up a shirt of an intense deep blue colour. “I found this in an Oxfam shop and the colour was so gorgeous I had to buy it but it looks all wrong on me.. But see?” She held it in front of Nicola, and turned her back towards the mirror. “Try it on, why not?”  
Nicola obediently put it on and regarded herself. The colour of the shirt made her eyes bluer and her hair more blonde. She didn’t look like herself but she did look more like someone who could believably be performing in public.  
“My work here is done,” said Robyn. “Let’s go. The others are coming along in a bit.”  
The brief glow of confidence she had felt while she looked in the mirror had evaporated by the time they had covered the fifteen minute walk to the pub. A chalk board stood outside advertising ‘Live Music Tonight’. Nicola felt a nervous knot clench in her stomach.  
What Philip hadn’t told her was that the group performing that night was a well known folk group with a large local following. There were far more people already in the pub than Nicola was expecting so soon after opening time.  
“There they are.” Robyn pointed out Philip, who was sitting with Dai at the bar. “Did you know the singer was coming too?”  
Nicola hadn’t, but she was fast feeling too nervous to care who was there or not. Philip saw her and stood up to meet her. “You look stunning,” he said. “Ready to go?” He led the way upstairs.  
After they’d warmed up and run through first and last lines, Philip said he’d fetch her a drink. She only wanted water, but he came back with a small whisky as well. “Just in case,” he said.

At that moment the door was pushed open and firstly Miranda, then Lawrie, looking ruffled and cross, burst in. Jan could be seen hanging diffidently behind them.  
“I’m _so_ sorry, Nick,” said Miranda hurriedly. “I didn’t know she didn’t know..”  
“ _Nick!_ ” broke in Lawrie. “You’re really singing ? Why didn’t _I_ know?”  
Philip took the three of them in at a glance. “You all need to go away,” he said, calmly shepherding them back to the door.  
“But I want to talk to Nick!” said Lawrie indignantly.  
“No. You can afterwards. Now go.”  
Impressed, Nicola watched Lawrie retreat, spluttering slightly but speechless.  
“No-one should bother you before you go on,” said Philip.  
“That was my sister.”  
“Yes.” He raised an amused eyebrow. “I guessed.”  
Nicola thought maybe she would try the whisky, after all, and sipped at it cautiously. At first the fiery glow surprised her as it travelled down her throat but once it reached her stomach she felt the edges of the hard knot of nerves inside become warm and fuzzy. She took another mouthful.  
“Right. It’s not like a concert. So don’t expect everyone to shut up when we go in. They’ll expect us to be fiddling round with the mike and stuff. Then I’ll play a long intro before the first song so they all pay attention,” Philip briefed her.  
“Do I have to say things. Before the songs?”  
“Not unless you want to?” Nicola shook her head, hastily. “Then don’t worry. I’ll do good evening and thank you at the end. Ready?”  
Nicola nodded and finished her whisky. It would all be over in half an hour, she thought, following Philip. She could hear the buzz of many voices as they came down the stairs and was jolted out of her whisky glow by the sight of so many people. Philip took her hand and led her between the crowded chairs and tables to get to the low, raised dais at the end of the room.  
Philip gave her hand a quick squeeze as he let it go, and before he switched the mike on, whispered close to her ear, “You’re going to be amazing so just try to enjoy it.”  
She gazed at the room as he adjusted the mike. At first all she could see was a blur of people, then recognisable faces came into focus. A group of her Oxford friends had filled the biggest table closest to the front , and were all beaming at her and doing ostentatious thumbs up. Further back sat Lawrie, gaping and curious, with Miranda on one side and Jan on the other, like prison guards, Nicola thought and tried to grin in her direction. Lawrie poked her tongue out at her. Nicola mentally shrugged and looked beyond her at where, right at the back of the room, still propping up the bar, Dai and Robin raised their glasses in her direction.  
She became aware of Philip playing. Hearing the intro with fresh ears as the room stilled and centred itself on her and Philip, she realised how beautiful his playing was, and almost didn’t want to break in on it. But there were the familiar notes, there was her cue, this was where she had to breathe, and now - Nicola opened her mouth and sang.  
It went so fast she could hardly describe it afterwards. She started to enjoy it halfway through the second song. As she started her last song, a tune she liked but with words that were so inexplicably sad, she realised with genuine, surprised regret that it was all about to be over.  
‘Did you learn to dream in the morning? Abandon dreams in the afternoon? Wait without hope in the evening?’ she sang. It was a long song but all too soon it was over, and she stood there bashfully, not at all sure what she should do now.  
The audience were applauding, not just her friends, she saw with relief, who were clapping as loudly as they could, but everyone else too. The applause held as she looked at Philip for guidance. He was unfolding himself from his stool, and taking her hand he said ’thankyou’ into the mike and led her down off the dais and up to her friends.  
She had to endure rather a lot of stunned but pleased praise and congratulation from everyone. It was all getting a bit much so she was relieved when someone shoved a drink into her hand, and turning she saw it was Philip. At the same time Miranda tugged at her elbow, and she half-stepped back, letting everyone talk to Philip instead.  
“Nicola, I’m so sorry about Lawrie being upset with you. I had no idea she didn’t know anything. I only said the most passing thing …”  
“Don’t worry about it - you weren’t to know. It’s not _your_ fault if Lawrie has to make everything into a three act drama. I’ll go and talk to her now.”

 

“But I don’t know why you _couldn’t_ tell me,” complained Lawrie for the third time.  
“I _told_ you. I didn’t tell anyone specially. I didn’t even know it would come off.”  
“You told _Miranda_.”  
“Only because of her knowing Phil. Really, it wasn’t a big secret.”  
“And all of _them_ ,” Lawrie indicated the group of Nicola’s Oxford friends.  
“It sort of got out, that’s all. Come on, you must do loads of stuff I don’t know about?” cajoled Nicola.  
“And Jan! And they weren’t even going to bring me until I said I’d come on the train anyway, and it’d be _their_ fault if I got _murdered_ on the way.”  
“ Oh Lal! She’s Philip’s sister! Anyway, don’t you tell Tim all sorts of things you don’t tell me?”  
“Not any more,” said Lawrie sadly. “I haven’t heard from her in ages.”  
“Oh,” said Nicola, starting to see. Then, a little lamely, “You have lots of friends there, don’t you? In London? Miranda said she saw you with a whole bunch of people?”  
“It’s not the same. They’re just people.”  
“Oh. Is that boy still being a pain?”  
“Which one?”  
“The one who kept eating garlic?”  
“Michael? Mostly it’s wine gums now.”  
“You’re not still on the same scene?”  
“Oh no. I mean at parties and things.”  
“Well, _that’s_ something you haven’t told me!”  
Lawrie shook her head irritably. “It’s nothing to tell. Just fun sometimes.”  
Nicola stared at her. She wasn’t sure if she was more astonished at Lawrie’s casual attitude or her own slight shock.  
Lawrie doggedly reverted to her former track. “Have you told anyone at home?” she asked suspiciously.  
“Oh no. I might say in my next letter, if we’re going to do it regularly.”  
“I don’t suppose they’ll come and watch,” said Lawrie.  
“I shouldn’t think so for a minute,” agreed Nicola.  
Lawrie visibly perked up. “Are you being paid to do this?”  
“No,” said Nicola, which was of course technically true at this moment, but then reluctant honesty made her say, “We will be paid next time though. If they liked us. Not much though,” she added hastily.  
“You know,” said Lawrie, thoughtfully. “It could be quite interesting, if you became a famous singer. I could talk about it in interviews. ‘No, I won’t be attending the Oscars this year, because I’m going to my sister’s concert. Have you heard of her? Oh yes, she’s _quite_ a well-known folk singer at home…'”  
Nicola could imagine nothing less likely, but as the idea seemed to have cheered Lawrie up, said simply, “Well, anyway, never mind being famous; come over and I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

 

Jan and Philip eventually found a quiet corner to themselves, and Jan could say in honest admiration, how well they’d done.  
“I knew Nicola could sing, but you’ve got something else again out of her. It was beautiful.”  
“So is this a rare case of me being right for once and you having to say you were wrong?” Philip teased.  
“No,” said Jan, severely. “Because, if you recall, I never said it wouldn’t be a good performance. I just didn’t know _why_ you were doing it.”  
“That is because you have a very suspicious legal mind and you’re always looking for ulterior motives.”  
Jan smiled fleetingly. Philip said instantly “What?”  
“What do you mean - what?”  
“What are you so pleased about?”  
“Can’t it just be that I’ve had an enjoyable evening listening to your lovely music?”  
“It could be. It’s not though, is it?”  
“No,” admitted Jan. “But if I tell you, it’s very unofficial and not-really-happening -yet.”  
“Ok,” said Philip. “Tell on.”  
“I’ve been offered a job. To do my articles I mean, when I‘ve finished this year. In London.”  
Philip frowned slightly, not following. “I thought you didn’t have to worry about that. Aren’t you going back to Scott and Son?” Their uncle was the ‘son’ of the name, and their now frail and elderly grandfather the original Scott.  
“Well, yes. But the thought of being stuck away in Norwich ….” Jan grimaced.  
“Won’t our beloved uncle be terribly upset? Wasn’t he expecting you to be working for him?”  
“He’s already had a free year out of me.” After declining the offer of a university place to study science, Jan had worked in her uncle’s practice as a secretary and general dogsbody while she applied for a law degree. Her uncle had given her a car at the end of the year. He had also paid for all the costs of this year while she completed her Legal Practice Course. “What I’m _hoping_ ,” said Jan, “is that I can persuade him to see that I’ll be a far better asset to the firm if I’ve had more experience in a big London firm, than in a sleepy country practice. That’s my best case scenario.”  
“And if not?”  
“Well, he _might_ say he paid for all this year on the understanding that I went back there to do my training contract. He could expect me to pay him back.”  
“Ah. Which you couldn’t.”  
“I could eventually. Bit by bit once I started earning. If he didn’t mind waiting a while.”  
“Oh Jan,” said Philip. “ If only I could write a hit song, you know I’d pay it all off for you.”  
“I’m sure you’d despise anything so commercial,” said Jan, touched but amused. “Either he sees my point or I have to pay him back - either way I get two more years in London.”  
“What if you still don’t want to go back when the two years are up?” asked Philip.  
Jan frowned. That was a thought that had occurred to her too, but it was a decision that could be shoved to the back of the shelf for the time being. “I‘m not going to think about that now,” she said firmly. “The point is I don’t have to leave anything here just yet.”  
She met his bright appraising gaze as blandly as she could, and taking the hint he asked instead, “Any chance Dai and I could come back with you? We’ll miss the last train if we don’t go soon, and this band are supposed to be good?”  
“Of course. We’ve got the brat to take back anyway.”  
“Why is the twin a brat?” asked Philip. But the band were arranging themselves on the stage, and Philip hating talking over musicians who were about to play so Jan didn’t have to bother explaining.

 

Nicola and Robyn walked back to their rooms together. The others had gone on ahead, but Nicola and Robyn had lingered saying goodbye and watching as Dai and Philip had piled into the back of Jan’s battered old car with Lawrie.  
They were in no hurry as they made their way home, Nicola because she was enjoying the afterglow of the night having gone well and not wanting it to be over; and Robyn because she had been matching Dai pint for pint and was, as Nicola thought, like a boat without keel or rudder. After she had nearly foundered for the second time, she linked arms with Nicola and then they made better progress.  
“You know something,” Robyn pronounced. “You’re really different when you sing.”  
“I am?”  
“Yes. I mean, no offence … actually I hate it when people say that, don’t you?” Robyn lost her train of thought. But after walking a bit further in silence she resumed, “When I first met you I thought you were just another posh girl, you know, private school and ponies in the stately home, not a clue about the real world….I didn’t think I liked you very much..”  
What could she say to _that_ , Nicola wondered.  
“But when you were singing… wow.. It’s like you’re a totally different person. It’s like you totally get .. Everything. I mean _everything_. It’s fucking awesome. Really.”  
“Thank you. I think,” said Nicola uncertainly.  
“Take a compliment, why don’t you? I said you were good. Really good.”  
To Nicola’s huge relief Robyn lapsed into silence as their reached their entrance. She steered her up to her room. There she had to take Robyn’s key and open the door for her as the lock seemed to be evading her attempts to put the key in it. Finally she saw Robyn safely berthed in a heap on her bed, and retreated thankfully to her own room.

 

Nicola didn’t see Robyn at her lecture the next morning. But returning to her room at lunchtime to sort out the stuff she needed for an afternoon in the library, she was disturbed by a soft knock on the door. Looking rather pale, Robyn poked her head in.  
“How are you feeling?” asked Nicola cautiously.  
“I’ve been better,” said Robyn. She looked unaccustomedly meek. “Um, Nick.”  
“Yes?”  
“Did I say anything last night? I mean anything rude?” said Robyn, leaning weakly on the doorpost. “ Only I‘ve done it before when I‘ve been drinking. My best friend from school didn‘t speak to me for weeks after a night out once.”  
Nicola regarded her with the heartless sympathy of one who has never got themselves into that state. “Well, you were a bit. But it was sort of on the way to saying something nice. If you know what I mean?”  
“Oh. So are we ok then?”  
“Sure. You can be rude to me any time,” said Nicola cheerfully.  
“Oh. Well. I probably will then. So long as you know it doesn’t mean any thing?”  
. It occurred to Nicola as she watched Robyn shuffle gingerly back to her own room that she actually liked her rather more than she had before.


	8. Night Drive.

Nicola went home for Easter and spent most of her time either working on or sailing the Tommy Noddy. She found she already had to buy several bits and pieces that she would need for her summer’s sailing, and returned to Oxford with renewed determination to make as money as she could over the coming term.  
After their first performance Joy had offered them a monthly paid slot. With her recommendation Philip also found them a pub in Reading that would have them once a month, if they did a free try-out gig first. Philip also thought he knew a pub in London which they could go to eventually, but as they were still meeting once a week to learn new songs and build up a repertoire he was leaving it for the time being. Nicola was pleasantly surprised when Philip gave her the money after their first paid gig; it might not seem much to any professional musician but added twice a month to her ‘Boat’ piggy bank it seemed a nice amount to get for doing something she was coming to enjoy anyway.  
She thought the first gig in the Reading pub was fun; nobody she knew was there watching which she found oddly liberating and relaxing. The audience there seemed friendly and appreciative and she felt herself growing into the songs, starting to really perform them rather than simply singing.  
She had travelled to Reading on the train, but Philip wanted to drive her back to Oxford.  
“I’ll be perfectly fine going back on the train,” she had protested.  
“I’m sure you would,” he replied. “But _I’d_ be worried about it.” Nicola was learning that however laid-back and even indolent Philip could seem at times, when he insisted on something he usually got his way. So she gave in, and he had borrowed Jan’s car.  
“Don’t you have a van?” she asked, as they found their way through the back roads of Reading.  
“Strictly speaking the van belongs to Martin - our drummer. In fact even that’s not true, it’s technically owned by his father. But I think he’s going to let us have it properly if we pay to get it through its MOT. But you wouldn’t want to be going home in it anyway - it’s got no heating.”  
“As long as Jan doesn’t mind?”  
“She’d say no if she minded. I just have to return it as full of petrol and sweets as it was when it started. Speaking of which, look in that pocket beside you, and pass me one.”  
Nicola, obeying, found the tin of barley sugar. She passed one over for Philip and took another herself.  
“I ate all Jan’s barley sugar once before,” she said, remembering.  
“I’ve done it many times myself. But what were you up to, raiding the prefects’ special tuck cupboard or something?”  
The idea was so removed from what school had really been like, that she could only grin and shrug a little when he cocked an eyebrow at her. “I was up on the roof once when I shouldn’t have been and I was upset about something.”  
“So instead of grassing you up, she fed you sweets? That sounds very like my _kind_ sister. What were you upset about, or shouldn’t I ask?”  
“Oh. It didn’t happen in the end, but I thought I was going to have to leave the school.”  
“I always got the impression that Jan didn’t care very much for the dear old school. But I take it that it was otherwise with you?”  
Slightly embarrassed, Nicola said hastily, “Oh no, not the school specially. I minded about leaving my friends - Miranda mostly.”  
“Ah. I see,” said Philip. Reflectively he added, “If I hadn’t gone to my school I’d never have met my friend Adrian. My life could have been quite different. I might even be a very unhappy trainee solicitor. If I’d ever got that far.”  
“Instead of Jan?”  
“If my uncle had any sense he’d have picked Jan for it in the first place. Apart from her brains, she actually _likes_ sorting out other peoples’ problems.” He was thoughtful for a moment, then said, “It was Adrian who helped me see that it was _ok_ that music was the only thing that really mattered to me. And that I’d just be miserable if I did anything else. Because, whatever crap is going on, it’s the only thing that makes sense of everything. I don’t mean something to escape into, I mean it’s only in music that I feel like things are connected and everything has a reason…...” He glanced at her. “It’s not like that for you, is it?”  
She shook her head, but he was watching the road again so she had to say reluctantly but honestly, “No, not really.”  
“No. it’s just something you can do,” he said, flashing a quick smile at her.  
Which was true enough, she supposed, but she couldn’t help wondering if it didn’t mean that she was a bit lacking in something. “So how far did you actually get with the solicitor thing?” she asked, curiously.  
“A-levels. Though not the actual exams. The day of my first paper, I took the punt out on the river and found a nice, quiet place to spend the day watching the clouds. Of course, the school rang home, very concerned, and there was hell to pay when I came home. So for the next ones I was driven to the door, frogmarched in, and spent a peaceful two hours writing music in my head.” He paused. “You’re being quietly disapproving, aren’t you?”  
She flushed, glad he couldn’t see her in the darkness of the car, lit only sporadically as they drove under street lamps. “Couldn’t you have just taken them and then decided?”  
“Maybe. But I could see everything closing in on me once I’d got them. University. More exams. Life in an office. I needed to throw a spanner in the works.”  
“And when your father found out?”  
“Well, I had the summer until the results came out. Then he was angry and upset and disappointed in every possible way. He thought I was giving up on a commitment, which was the worst thing anyone could do in his book,” Philip said. “Only it wasn’t ever _my_ commitment, it was just something _they’d_ all planned for me. Dad said either I agreed to resit the papers at the first available opportunity or I got out. So I got out.”  
As they gave way at a junction, a passing car’s headlights swung across them. She could see him smiling slightly. “Where did you go?” she asked.  
“I put up at Adrian’s parents for a week or so. Then we came down to London. Found a squat. Found a drummer and a bass player, and went from there. We were playing almost every night somewhere or other. And we were _good_.”  
“Did - does your father ever come and see you?”  
“No. He came to Jan’s graduation last summer but I was away. And I haven’t been back home since - well, not for a while now.”  
“Oh. Isn’t he pleased now you’re doing quite well?”  
Philip waited to answer, seeming to concentrate on overtaking a slow car in front of them. They were on a fast, main road; all Nicola could see was the stretch of straight road ahead in the advancing pools of their headlights.  
“My father is a good man,” said Philip finally. “He’s bringing up two kids who almost certainly aren’t his own. He’s married a perfectly nice person and made everything normal, for them, and himself. He doesn’t really need me - or Jan - reappearing too often to remind him what it was like before.”  
He seemed to lapse into his memories so she was just going to have to ask. “You mean when your mother was - when she died?” Then as he didn’t answer straightaway, she added, “That’s if you don’t mind. I mean, tell me to mind my own if you want.”  
“No, why should I?” he said, quite normally, to her relief. “It’s quite a long story. You might want another of those sweets." He hesitated, as if thinking where to start. "Mum was ill. She had manic depression. Not that my father ever called it that. Not when we were little. It was always, ‘your mother’s in one of her moods’ or ‘we need to leave mummy alone today, she’s not feeling quite well’.  
“He might never have married her, only he ended up having to, because _I_ was on the way. She was quite a bit younger than he was. He told me once afterwards that all the things he thought he was falling in love with - her passion, her energy, her excitement about things, were probably the first symptoms of her illness. And once he’d thought that, he stopped loving her. Which wasn’t _fair_ , because she was so funny and kind and beautiful. She taught me to play the guitar to start with. And for long times everything could be quite ordinary, like we were a normal family, when she was on the right medication. Only, she’d think she was ok and didn’t need to keep taking it, and she’d hide it and pretend that she had taken it. And then there’d be terrible rows and sometimes she might run off and disappear for days.  
“So after one of those times she ended up having the twins and Dad had to mostly stop work and look after her, and them. He only made the odd house call to some of his old patients who didn’t like to see a new doctor. He used to take the twins with him if he went and they slept in the car.  
“She must have been waiting for him to leave her alone. She must have had it planned it for ages. She’d stolen one of Dad’s prescription pads and forged his signature and stocked up on the pills she wanted. And just to make sure no-one could help her in time, she sat in the bath and took them so as soon as she lost consciousness she drowned.”  
He was driving with only one hand on the wheel and the other resting lightly on the gear stick. Nicola impulsively reached to clasp his hand; a wasted gesture as it turned out, as he had to flick the indicator and change gear soon after. But having swung into their turning and on a straight road again, he reached back for her hand and squeezed it, so maybe it hadn’t been entirely useless.  
“Dad was like a ghost afterwards,” continued Philip. “He coped with the first day or two, sorting things out, but then, it was like he was in shock for weeks. I stayed off school to look after the twins because he could be sat staring into space not even hearing one of them crying. And they’d got to that age where they start climbing up things and trying to play with things they shouldn’t. Eventually someone official noticed and got involved , and he had to go back to work and employ a sort of nanny/ housekeeper. Going back to work was the best thing for him, it turned out.  
“I went back to being quite a good boy at school and passed all my O’levels better than anyone expected, which was my big mistake as it turned out, because that’s when my uncle suggested to Dad that maybe I could join him in the family firm. Which is, I think, where we came in at the start. And the rest is history.”  
There was no adequate response to any of that story, but Nicola tried. “Oh Phil, I’m so sorry..”  
“Don’t be,” he said quickly. “Not for me anyway.”  
They were coming into the outskirts of Oxford, into lighted roads and familiar rows of houses. There were still a few people around in the streets.  
“What’s the best way to your place from here?” asked Philip.  
Nicola directed him, relieved to have something so normal to say and do. “You can drop me anywhere here,” she said, finally.  
“Jan always complains I talk too much,” remarked Philip, pulling up. “Next time you have to tell me all _your_ family history.”  
“Not much to tell,” Nicola replied. “I might tell you the story of the first time I came to Oxford though.” As she reached for the door she found she still had the tin of sweets clutched in her hand.  
“Leave them on the seat,” he said. “I expect I’ll finish them on the way home.”

 

XXXX

It was the early hours of the morning by the time Philip left Jan’s car back in its parking place outside her flat. A low light still shone in an upstairs window. Philip, slipping the car keys through the letter-box, found himself hoping for her sake that Jan wasn’t alone.

 

Miranda, who was far too happy to sleep, heard the engine note of the reversing car and the soft flap of the letterbox. Jan, lying beside her, with her fair hair fanned out over the pillow, half-stirred in her sleep and was still again.

 

XXXXX

 

It took some time before Miranda could talk about how things had changed between herself and Jan, even to Nicola. At first she thought it was impossible to be really so happy and couldn’t help feeling that, like a fairytale, the spell would break if she told anyone. And then, what to say that wasn’t too personal or private, when she held whole conversations in her heart as sacred moments to be savoured forever. Such as that first evening by the river. They had been leaning on a rail in a companionable silence. The spring days were lengthening and the last of the sunset glimmered in the rippling water. Jan had been the one to break the silence, with what seemed like a random comment at the time, something about not liking to start things that she might not be able to finish. Gradually it dawned on Miranda in a glorious rush that Jan was telling her that she had been afraid she was going to have to go home soon, and now she wasn’t ….. ‘Miranda, what do you want us to be?’ Jan had asked and startled, Miranda had replied ‘ _Everything!_ ' Terrified by what she had said, afraid of scaring Jan off at a moment when they seemed to be so close, she had hastily tried to retract, but Jan, smiling, had ever so gently told her to shut up, and pulling her close, had kissed her. From that moment on, everything was changed.

In the end, she told Nicola simply that they’d talked properly for the first time and that they were seeing how it went. Once or twice a week she did stay at Jan’s but they had to take things slowly because she knew Jan liked her space.  
Nicola confessed that she had suspected as much from a chance remark of Philip’s and she had been phoning in the unashamed hope of finding out more.  
“You’re not getting nosey in your old age, are you Nicola?” teased Miranda.  
“Well, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” retorted Nicola. “Just I am pleased for you, you know.”  
“Philip talks far too much. I don’t know why people say _women_ gossip.”  
Miranda sounded terrifically perky, thought Nicola. “It wasn’t anything really,” she said in Philip’s defence. “Just about not seeing much of you two lately.”  
“And did he also mention that Lawrie has taken them up as her new best friends?”  
“Well, not like that. He did say she’d come to a couple of gigs?”  
It seemed that after sharing the back seat of the car on the journey back from Oxford after Nicola’s first performance, Lawrie had claimed intimate friendship with both the singer and guitarist of a real live band, and had brought all her drama school friends along to see Ffurnais play and then hang around partying afterwards.  
“Are they being embarrassing?” asked Nicola, having visions of Lawrie showing herself up.  
“They are pretty wild,” said Miranda, then recalling that this was Nicola’s twin she was talking about, “but probably no worse than anyone else there really.”  
“But what do they do?” asked Nicola, alarmed.  
“Just drinking and being silly. Don’t panic, Nick, you must do as much at student parties?”  
“Just drink? No-one does anything else - you know - drugs?”  
“No. At least people may that I don’t know about, but I’ve never seen anyone in Lawrie’s group, and I know Phil and Dai and the others don’t. Some of the hangers-on may do, but not that I‘ve ever seen.”  
“Oh,” said Nicola, not entirely reassured. “So it’s not all sex and drugs and rock-and-roll then?"  
“Well, sex, yes. It’s probably a good thing you’re not interested in Phil that way. There’s always girls all over them. Jan says the boys are just like lost labrador puppies. They’ll go off home with anyone who’s nice to them.”  
“Oh. Miranda - what do you say to your parents when you’re at Jan’s?”  
“That I’m staying over with a friend to save travelling across London late at night on my own. What could be simpler? And partly true.”  
“Will you tell them properly one day?”  
“Dad - _maybe_. Mum - probably never.”

Nicola, walking back thoughtfully to her room, supposed she couldn‘t really keep worrying about Lawrie.. She was going to be increasingly removed from her twin’s life as time went on so Lawrie would just have to go on getting in and out of messes by herself. And then there was Miranda, keeping a whole chunk of her life secret from her parents. How complicated life was getting for people, she thought. Generally Nicola was a sociable person who would as soon be around other people as not, but she was starting to think that actually it might be rather restful this year to be spending most of the summer out on the sea entirely on her own.


	9. Lawrie Arranges A Lift.

Philip thought they should have a go at the London pub before they stopped for the summer. He and the band were going away soon, playing at various festivals and going on tour in support of an up-and-coming band which was starting to have some minor chart success. This suited Nicola too, as she was going to concentrate on her end of year exams and then as soon as she was free, plan her trips in the Tommy Noddy.  
Once the date was fixed Nicola made a point of phoning Lawrie and making sure she knew exactly when and where it was.  
“Well, I _might_ come along. If I’ve got nothing better to do,” said Lawrie, airily.  
“Suit yourself,” said Nicola, exasperated but not letting it show.  
“Shall I bring lots of people?” Lawrie asked.  
“No, of course not!”  
“Why not? Don’t you want lots of people there?”  
“Lawrie, you can’t tell people to come and watch your _sister_ \- it looks like …. swank. And embarrassing for them if it’s not very good.”  
“Well, I call that silly. When I’m in a proper play I’ll expect you to bring lots of people. And besides, you _are_ good.”  
“Well don’t,” growled Nicola.  
“I don’t suppose it would be their sort of thing anyway. I’ll see if Patrick wants to come, shall I? I can’t come on my own!”  
Nicola was thrown, unable to think of a reason why Patrick shouldn’t come quickly enough. Really, Patrick being there shouldn’t be any different to having her Oxford friends watching - all of whom had come and supported her, or Miranda or Jan. And yet, from the way her stomach clenched at the thought, it would be different.

She and Patrick had written regularly to each other over the last academic year, but they hadn’t actually seen that much of each other. In her letters she had skirted over her singing, mentioning it only as a means to an end, and writing more about her Oxford life. They had seen each other for only a few days at Christmas, and then again briefly at Easter. Nicola was spending her days sailing and Patrick trying to learn about the Mariot Chase estate, so it was only in the pub in the evenings that they had caught up.  
Patrick had another year of his degree to go, then he was hoping to be allowed to come home and work on the estate. His father apparently had other ideas.  
“He keeps on about finding me an internship with one of his friends in Parliament,” he grumbled to Nicola.  
“That could be quite interesting. Couldn’t it?” said Nicola, thinking that she herself would find it fascinating, knowing what went on from the inside.  
“Yes, bits of it. But some of it could be massively boring. And not even being paid. At least if I came back here I could pay myself farm-workers’ wages. And get to go hawking.”  
Nicola was aware of the hours the farm-workers worked at Trennels. “I don’t think you would have time to go hawking actually. Not properly. Not if you were really being a worker, enough to be paid, I mean,” she said, doubtfully.  
“Peter’s lucky,” said Patrick gloomily. “Rowan couldn’t have been happier to hand over. Our chap’s got decades left before he even thinks of retiring.”  
“Even if you were the farm manager you wouldn’t have time to go hawking all day,” Nicola pointed out realistically.  
“Nick, you’re not treading very softly on my dreams today,” said Patrick. He grinned at her amicably though. “What I’d like is to be a proper old-fashioned gentleman farmer, not having to do any actual work, and just be able to hunt three times a week all season and hawk in between.”  
“I know what you would have been good at being,” said Nicola, feeling cheeky after her second gin and tonic. “One of Jane Austen’s vicars.”  
“Hmm. I haven’t actually read any, so I’m going to assume that’s less insulting than it sounds….”  
“Why don’t you ask your father if you can use a few acres, and start a falconry centre?” suggested Nicola. “If all you want to do all day is hawks?”  
“You mean breeding them? Or displays?” Patrick asked.  
“Both.”  
“It’s an idea. If I could be that enterprising. The trouble would be all that talking to strangers.”  
“Oh, Patrick!” she had exclaimed, exasperated.  
“I know. I’m a proper lost cause,” he had agreed, golden eyes glinting.  
As they parted, he had said, “I’m going to see you at the Trennels party, aren’t I? Do you think you’ll invite your friend from the antique shop?”  
“Miranda? I could do. But why specially?”  
“I have some friends of friends who’d like to very discreetly sell some stuff off. I thought maybe I could have a quiet word with her on their behalf?”  
“Ok. But you _could_ call in to the Shop if you wanted.”  
“I know. But at this stage a very casual word at a party might be easier. In case she’s not interested at all. Or they don’t want to go through with it. Oh, and Nick?”  
Nicola looked inquiry.  
“I hope we’re going to stick to the tradition of you dancing all the dances with me?”  
“But natch,” she said.

 

The Trennels summer party was starting to become a tradition. It was held on the Whitsun weekend - originally to coincide with the school summer half-term - and had been organised by Rowan for the first four years. It started as a fairly sedate barn dance and barbeque, to which anyone who had ever invited the Marlows to parties could be invited back. Most of the older members of the Pony Club came, as did local members of the Hunt. Family relations came and stayed in the house, while school friends and younger visitors camped out in one of the barns - in theory girls at one end, boys at the other, with sheep hurdles down the middle. This year Peter was taking over the organisation and with the help of the rowdier elements of the Young Farmers Club was promising to shake things up. The local butcher’s enterprising son was bringing a hog roast, instead of Mrs Bertie’s buffet. A jazz band would start the evening for the more formal dances, but then two of Peter’s friends would take over with their mobile disco for the later part of the evening. Ginty usually brought along some of her eventing friends, and Lawrie had plans to bring down a whole group of people from drama school. But Nicola wasn’t planning to bring anyone. She was looking forward to the potential pleasure of spending the evening properly with Patrick, but she was also doubtful about how it might look bringing her Oxford friends to Trennels. She could imagine what Robyn would think of Trennels, and even people like Angela might think she was doing a massive show-off. Plus, if Peter was being over-ambitious the whole thing could end up in disaster, and in that case the less outsiders there the better.

 

Nicola rang Miranda and explained about the party. “Would Jan want to come, d’you think? With you I mean?”  
“I’ll mention it very, very casually. But I don’t think so really. It’s only you and Phil even know what's happening, so it’s not as if we’re going to start parading around together yet.”  
Nicola felt relieved. She hadn’t been at all sure of the etiquette of the situation. Clearly if someone had a boyfriend, however new and seemingly casual their relationship was, you invited them both if you were asking one of them to a party. But if Jan and Miranda’s relationship was effectively secret, what did she do? It was true that she had mostly stopped thinking of Jan as her old school prefect, but at the same time, it wasn’t as if they were suddenly terrific friends and on automatic party inviting terms. Lawrie would certainly think it unusual if she invited her, and once Lawrie got jabbering who knew what she’d say.

 

XXXX

 

Robyn offered to go to London with her. “Do you think Dai might turn up?” she asked hopefully, once they were on the train.  
“No idea. I could have asked if you’d said before…”  
“Good thing I didn’t, then!”  
Nicola had no idea yet if Patrick was coming either, and still wasn’t sure if she actually wanted him to or not. The only time he had heard her sing before was in the Christmas Play at the Cathedral, which was a school thing, and completely different to what she was doing now.  
Philip rarely corrected her musical technique, but he did suggest improvements to her expression.  
“They’re not just words, you have to give them meaning,” he had said once. And when she over compensated, and exaggerated, “No, it’s not acting. You can’t just project one meaning out there. Let the listener feel what it means to them, but you have to put yourself in the song to do that. You have to feel it yourself.”  
The trouble was, when she got it right and sang it just the way he wanted, she felt exposed, as if she was revealing emotions that she had spent years learning not to show. And the thought of singing like that with Patrick listening made her feel oddly as if she was going to be singing naked.

They started their usual warm-up in a back room of the pub, and Philip could tell instantly. He stopped her. “Why are you nervous?” he asked. “It won’t be that different, just because it’s London.”  
Feeling slightly fraudulent, she thought he might as well think that. And it wasn‘t entirely not true anyway. “They’ll be expecting more though, won’t they?”  
“They’re going to get you, and they’re going to go home feeling very pleased at having heard such an undiscovered talent,” he said winningly. “Do you want to leave out the new song then and just stick to the ones you’ve done before?”  
“No. It's OK. I don’t mind.”  
“Only you never sound quite sure with ‘Forever Young'?”  
“Actually, it makes me think of one of my sisters,” she admitted.  
“Not Lawrie, surely?”  
“No, one of my older ones. She’s called Ann. But there’s all the God bless and being righteous bits which sound sort of religious like she is. And then, there’s the bit about 'always do for others and let others do for you'. And she does always do for others. There’s lots more actually.”  
“Go on.”  
“'May your hands always be busy and your feet always be swift'. That’s exactly  _her._ ”  
“And what does she do?”  
“Training to be a nurse. It’s only the chorus doesn’t quite fit. She’s probably the most grown up of all of us.”  
“Young doesn’t mean childish though. I think it means staying fearless and open-minded and excited about things. Not getting disillusioned by life.” He picked up his guitar again. “Alright, we’ll just do your warm-ups and we’ll go out. You’re always fine once you get out there.”  
He was right. She had stopped feeling anxious as they talked, as if she was a nervous horse being soothed, she thought. They went through to the stage, where she could see Dai and Robyn sitting at a table near the front, along with Miranda, Jan and Lawrie. No Patrick.  
Oh well, she thought, torn between relief and disappointment, and Philip thought she sang better than ever.

Lawrie, slightly put out that Dai had mostly been paying attention to Robyn, nabbed Philip as soon as they came off, while Nicola talked to Miranda and Jan. It wasn’t till later that Nicola had a chance to speak to Lawrie alone.  
“I’ve invited Philip to the party,” she announced proudly.  
“You’ve done what?” asked Nicola, surprised.  
“It’s great, isn’t it? He’s got the van and he can drive us all down in it!”  
“Who are ‘us’?”  
“Everyone! Michael of course, and any of the others who want to come. I reckon we can pack loads into the back of that van. You too, if you want?”  
“I’m getting the train down from Oxford,” said Nicola coldly. “Does Phil know that’s why you’ve asked him?”  
“Oh yes,” said Lawrie. “He doesn’t mind!”  
“Really Lal, you have the most awful cheek,” protested Nicola, with a sinking sense of deja-vu. She seemed to be having the same conversation with Lawrie every time she spoke to her.  
“Nonsense,” replied Lawrie. “You shouldn’t be so hung-up about things.”  
It occurred to Nicola that if Philip was coming it would make it more natural for Jan to come. She would mention it quietly to Miranda.  
“Oh!” said Lawrie, remembering suddenly. “ Patrick said he was sorry he couldn’t come tonight by the way. He had some essay he was late finishing apparently. He’ll definitely come next time, he said to tell you.”

Luckily there would be a next time. Philip came back from talking to the manager of the pub, and said that he was very impressed and couldn’t wait to have them back again in the autumn.

 

 

“I don’t know why you’re so keen to go,” said Jan, putting the kettle on. “It’ll be all the sort of people you don’t like. Hunting and shooting types. People in tweed.”  
“Not in this weather.”  
“They wear tweed on the inside. If you know what I mean.”  
“Nicola will be there,” said Philip, rocking precariously on Jan’s kitchen stool.  
“And hordes and hordes of sisters.”  
“So why don’t you come too?”  
“Not me. I don’t really know any of them properly. Karen was year above, Rowan was year below.”  
“Exactly how many of them are there?” asked Philip.  
“Let me see. There’s Karen, she’s the clever one. And Rowan, the super-competent one.”  
“Then Anne, the good one,” added Miranda. “And Ginty, the pretty one.”  
“Then Lawrie, the talented one,” finished Rowan.  
“So what’s Nicola?” asked Philip. “All of those?”  
“Nicola’s the nice one,” said Miranda loyally.  
“There’s two boys as well. I’m never quite sure where they fit in.” said Jan. “The oldest is the important one.”  
“I’m going to _have_ to go now. You’ve made me curious.”  
Jan eyed him sharply. “You’re just being perverse. Just don’t say I haven’t warned you.” She went to pour the boiling water into the mugs.  
Philip grinned at Miranda. “Would you like a lift? You can have the front seat and Lawrie’s lot can pile in the back.”  
“Suits me,” said Miranda, privately pleased that Philip was going. Apart from Nicola, she wasn’t really going to know anyone there herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Forever young' is here -   
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNx2rH6hHog  
> And the lyrics -   
> http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobdylan/foreveryoung.html


	10. Scenes From A Party.

The front seat of the van was technically one and a half people wide, so Philip told Lawrie that the smallest of her friends could sit in the front. There was no argument - a petite girl with a mop of curly hair was easily the tiniest of the group and climbed into the front next to Miranda. She looked, thought Miranda, as if she had been drawn by a caricaturist; the face just too heart-shaped, the lips like a cartoon princess’s cupid’s bow, the eyes too big and long-lashed, the eye-brows too pencil thin and arched. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was attractive. She introduced herself as Emily, cast a speculative come-hither look over both Philip and Miranda, and then to Miranda’s relief, curled against the van door and fell asleep as they drove out of London.  
Miranda had spent four years at Kingscote after Jan left wondering if it _was_ just Jan or if she really _did_ prefer women to men. No-one else at school had set off that pang of longing she felt for Jan, but neither had any of the inevitable boys and young men that she met at her mother’s social events or the holiday pastimes she was pushed into. Even the advanced fencing coach, who left his other female pupils helpless with passionate crushes, didn’t stir a twitch in her. Only after she left school had she met other women who did make her feel that physical interest, but by then Jan was back in her life so it became an academic question anyway.  
Philip sniffed, glanced into the back of the van and pulled over abruptly. Jumping out he went round to the back, and pulled the door open.  
“Whoever that is, put it out.”  
The two boys who had lit up a spliff looked astonished, and protested.  
“My wheels, my rules,” said Philip crossly. “Unless you want to walk to Dorset?” As they were barely out of London yet, they grumbled but handed it over. Philip trod it under his heel. “Lawrie!” Lawrie, wedged in the corner where she was sharing a pack of extra-strong mints with Michael, looked up. “You’re supposed to be controlling your friends!”  
As Philip climbed back into the driver’s seat he rolled his eyes at Miranda. “Jan was right. It’s going to be like taking a bunch of kids on a school trip.”  
“Not quite like any school trip I ever went on!” said Miranda. He laughed.  
“Why are you so anti - you know? It was only a spliff?”  
“If they want to do these stupid things they can find their own place to do it.”  
“I didn’t mean just now. I mean - you don’t generally, do you?”  
“ I don’t understand why anyone would choose to mess with their minds,” he said. “Being out of your head? It’s not 'cool’.” He frowned a little, searching for the right words. “Being able to think clearly, and know your own mind, that’s a great thing, isn’t it? Like you do? And Nicola?”  
“Me?” said Miranda, aware that she had only just been thinking of the time when she hadn’t known her own mind.  
“Me too,” Emily piped up. Neither of them had realised she was awake. “I _always_ know what I want.”

 

They arrived at Trennels early in the evening, while preparations were in full swing. A paddock next to the drive was being used as a car park, and they parked the van next to the Land-rovers, estate cars and the odd Rolls-Royce left by other early arrivals.  
“Have you been here before?” Philip asked Miranda as they followed Lawrie up to the house with the others. Miranda nodded, but she had forgotten quite how imposing it all was; from the rolling fields seen on their way up the lane, to the magnificent stands of oak trees that framed the beautiful old house and the mellow red brick archway leading into the stable yard. Miranda knew that she had had a privileged upbringing, knew that she herself had no idea what it was like not to be wealthy, but she found the sense of age and history connected to this place both alien and intimidating. It was the sort of people who lived in places like this who provided Miranda and her father with much of their business, selling pieces of furniture hundreds of years old; secretly despising the Wests’ new money and expertise even as they needed their help to keep their ancient homes alive. Not of course that the Marlows were like that, thought Miranda, mentally shaking herself, although of course it was _mad_ that only the eldest son got it, and they weren’t allowed to sell it off.  
Peter had been lucky with the weather. It was a balmy evening and the sides of the marquee on the lawn had been rolled up, so a breeze could pass over the dance floor. The members of the jazz band, dressed in black tie, had hung their jackets up and were setting up in shirt sleeves. The smell of roasting pig drifted across the lawn, the unfamiliar smell making Miranda feel both faintly repelled but also hungry.  
They found Peter setting up a string of fairy lights along the edge of the haha. “We don’t want anyone falling in later,” he explained. Miranda and he remembered and liked each other from a previous visit. “Can I get you a drink or do you want to find Nicola first? I think she walked down to meet Patrick. Let me check these work and I’ll point you in the right direction.”  
Lawrie and her friends had drifted off in the direction of the bar, set up under a striped awning in the centre of the lawn. Miranda and Philip exchanged glances.  
“I think we’ll find Nicola,” Miranda said.  
Peter had filled out since Miranda last saw him, and farm work had given him muscles. He had lost the look of being Nicola- as- a- boy that had struck Miranda before. He showed them across the lawn, past the hog roast, saying “It’s all a bit of a Gentile feast here I’m afraid, but we do have some lovely lamb burgers as well, made from our own Trennels lamb.” He sounded proud, but it sounded mystifying to Miranda.  
“What is a Trennels lamb?”  
“Oh, it’s fed on our special Trennels grass. Makes it extra tasty, you know. Now here - follow that path straight across this field. When you get to the brow you can see the chimneys of Mariot Chase and you just head for them. But I expect you’ll meet them coming back anyway, they’ve been ages.”  
Miranda and Philip walked slowly across the field. “It’s funny,” said Miranda. “When we were at school there were always some of the teachers who didn’t really like the Marlows. Some of the girls too. It’s like they thought Nick and the others needed taking down a peg or two. Whenever I come here I sort of see where that was coming from.”  
Philip, who had been recalling some of Dai’s comments on the English in general and the upper-class English in particular, said simply, “People can’t choose their families, can they?” And added, as they saw the roofline of another beautiful house in the distance, “Who lives in this one?”  
“That’s Patrick’s. They’ve been here for ever apparently. They’ve got priest-holes to hide in from the Tudor times, Nick says.”  
“Patrick?”  
“Nicola’s friend. Boy next door. It must be strange knowing your family has lived in the same house you’re living in for hundreds of years past. My lot must have still been wandering round Europe when they were first living here.”  
“A good thing for Jan that they got here in the end, then,” he said, leaving her temporarily speechless, then eyeing her floaty summer dress, “Are you going to be alright with this stile?”  
“Oh yes,” she said, gathering her skirts and managing it nimbly. “I don’t normally go in for this much material, but it does make this sort of thing easier.”  
Philip’s only concession to being smart for a party had been his newest pair of jeans and an actual shirt with a collar, but worn with sleeves rolled up and top button undone. He half-climbed the stile after her, and paused looking back the way they had come.  
“What?” asked Miranda.  
“I was thinking what a great place this would be for holding a festival,” he said. “Do you think Nick’s brother would go for it?”  
“I doubt it,” said Miranda. “At least, _he_ might, but I don’t suppose the parents would.”  
They were in sight of the Merrick’s house now, partially screened by high hedges and old brick walls. “What do we do now?” asked Miranda uncertainly. “We were supposed to have met them by now.”  
“Find a tradesman’s entrance?” suggested Philip, only half-joking.  
An afghan hound appeared round a corner and barked excitedly.  
“Oh good,” said Miranda. “Nick can’t be far away.” They followed the dog, which retreated before them in anxious circles, alternately barking and wagging its tail, through an archway in a wall where Nicola, coming to see what Tessa was barking at, met them.  
“Miranda! Philip! Hi!” Slightly awkward introductions were made, and Philip found himself briefly shaking hands with what Jan would call a _very_ tweedy young man with the strangest mustard coloured eyes.  
“No time like the present,” said Nicola a little too heartily to Patrick. “Why don’t you discuss that thing with Miranda here now, and I’ll take Philip to meet Buster?”  
Patrick looked disconcerted, but agreed that that sounded like a good idea. Philip noticed Miranda putting on her Shop face - effortlessly polite but ready to crush time-wasters.  
He happily followed Nicola through a sort of garden where a fountain splashed, through another archway to where he saw a small field, apple trees and a black pony who whinnied when he saw them.  
“This is Buster,” said Nicola, with obvious pride and affection. She was wearing a light dress with no pockets, so Buster disapprovingly came to Philip and butted hopefully at his jean pockets instead. “Sorry Buster, I don’t have a thing, Nobody told me I‘d be meeting you or I‘d have brought polos.” said Philip, spreading his hands out for the pony to sniff at. Then he stroked his neck on both sides, saying, “That’s a seriously cool head of hair you’ve got there,” and other similar nonsense. Buster, fascinated, started snuffling at Philip’s hair. “Must be the apple shampoo,” he joked. “Or does he think it’s hay?”  
Nicola was unexpectedly charmed, it not having occurred to her that Philip might be an animal person. By the time Patrick and Miranda came to find them, Philip’s shirt was covered in black hairs.  
They walked back together to Trennels where dance music could already be heard playing across the fields. Miranda was wondering if her father would let her take charge of the potential trip to France to see if these friends of Patrick’s really had anything worth the expense of shipping. They didn’t want to sell it through a French dealer or through an auction house because they didn’t want anyone who might know them knowing that they were selling off stuff. Nicola was telling Philip, who professed total ignorance about horses and riding, about some of Buster’s famous exploits, including jumping the Cut.  
“And Nicola’s practically given up riding since then,” added Patrick. “She’ll never do anything as good as that again.” Which could have sounded nasty, thought Miranda curiously, except that Nicola added cheerfully, “Except it was all him, not me anyway!”  
There was a slight slope to the last bit of the path back, which made it easier not to keep talking. Patrick and Nicola drew slightly ahead and as they reached the Trennels lawn. Miranda noticed him place a proprietary hand onto the small of her back. Lawrie waved and beckoned them over to where her group of friends had gathered, yelling exaggeratedly, “Where have you all _been_?” And then the party was in full swing , and they gathered and dispersed as the swirls and eddies of drinking, talking and dancing took them.

Miranda found that the party was turning into a business trip as far as she was concerned. Peter danced with her, very nicely, then rather less gallantly handed her over to Major Clavering. After she had answered his polite small-talk about who she was, and what she did, the Major became very animated and started telling her a confusing story about a lovely three year old colt he’d been offered a share in, and a Queen Anne writing desk an aged relative had left. Eventually it turned out that the two stories were connected, because he wanted to sell one and buy the other. Immoderately encouraged by her polite pretence at interest, he introduced her to several more acquaintances with similar stories. By the end of the evening she had arranged to come back for a day to go and look at everything. If even one thing was as good as they each claimed it was, it just might be worth doing.

 

Peter encountered Miranda’s long-haired friend at the side of the marquee. “You’ve got an empty glass,” he pointed out, brandishing one of the jugs he was carrying. “I’ve got punch here although it’s strictly Pony Club strength. You might want to stick to the beer. They’ve just opened another barrel!”  
“I’ll do that,” agreed Philip.  
Peter glanced in the direction of Philip’s gaze, to where Nicola’s blonde head was twirling slowly. “If you’re waiting for Nick, I wouldn’t bother. Patrick usually hogs her for the whole thing,” he said, then turning to say something else, found that Philip had already melted away.

Philip, threading through the bushes at the edge of the lawn, thinking that what he would most like would be five minutes on his own away from it all bumped into a girl who seemed to be going the same way with the same intention. She was crying, not messily, not noisily, but enough that he noticed. And having seen, and that she’d seen he’d seen, he couldn’t very well nod and walk away.  
“Are you ok?” he asked.  
“Oh yes, it’s nothing. I’m just being silly,” she said quickly. He realised it must be one of Nicola’s sisters; there was a strong family resemblance to her face, but without Nicola’s fierce, blue-eyed gaze.  
“I’m Philip,” he said.  
“Oh. Ginty,” she said, taking the proffered hand. He couldn’t remember which one this was supposed to be. Ginty the good one seemed pleasingly alliterative, but from what Nicola had said that one must be Ann.  
“Who are you here with?” she asked, having hastily wiped her eyes.  
“I came with Lawrie. But I know Nick too. Would you like me to get you a drink?”  
“Oh no, really, I am ok. I just wanted a few minutes, you know.”  
“Ah. Shall I clear off?”  
“Oh no, it’s fine honestly. Don’t go.” Once she’d said that, he couldn’t decently get away. She continued, “It’s just I saw P - people dancing, and it reminded me of how I always seem to mess things up.”  
There was a low mossy stone bench in a small clearing which they sat down on. The bushes were blooming with some kind of white flower which smelled heady in the dusky air. He could see she was about to unburden herself the way people often did to complete strangers, and sighed inwardly, but said politely, “Boyfriend trouble?”  
“Y-yes. He was supposed to be with me tonight, only we had a - a row.” It was a long story and Philip half tuned out, but it seemed to involve a rich businessman who was going to sponsor her and buy her a really decent horse to ride. “So of course I had to be friendly to him, only Tom got the wrong idea and he thought - ”  
She brushed away another tear. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, embarrassed.  
“It seems obvious to me,” he said gently. “You just have to tell him.”  
“I do, don’t I?” she said. “He probably won’t be sponsoring me, if I don’t - you know,” she added sadly.  
“Do you love this Tom?”  
“Yes. Of course.”  
“More than a horse?”  
“Of course!”  
“Well, then?”  
She was silent for a moment. “It’s not too late. I could ring him now. Sorry I dragged you into all this.” She got up. “Thank you!” she added, and light on her feet, stepped away through the bushes.  
She was pretty enough, he supposed, although that sort of fragile charm did nothing for him, but he couldn’t help feeling sorry for whatever poor fool had fallen for her. And what he really needed right now was another drink.

 

Lawrie who was very drunk, and Michael, who was only a little bit tight, were doing impressions when Philip rejoined the group. They were all slumped down at the dark end of the lawn, and Philip folded himself down at the edge of the circle.  
“This is Ginty dancing with Major Clavering,” announced Lawrie, squeaking and wincing as Michael, overplaying his part, let his hands creep ever lower and surreptitiously pinched her bum.  
Emily snaked up to Philip, and leaned confidingly against him. “There’s the most beautiful dog wandering around with hair just like yours,” she said, reaching up and stroking a stray lock.  
“Wendy and Peter,” cried Lawrie, and it was her turn to grope enthusiastically at Michael, who didn’t seem to mind. They swayed in the centre of the circle.  
“Do people _we_ know,” objected someone.  
Emily twined herself against Philip, sliding her fingers up and down his arm.  
“My sister dancing with Patrick,” said Lawrie, and assumed a rapt expression, gazing adoringly up at Michael.  
“You can’t do your own _twin_ sister,” said a thin, dark boy called Paul.  
“I don’t see why not. We don’t look alike,” Lawrie argued back. This was true on this evening. Lawrie’s mid-length hair was pinned up on her head while Nicola had shortish cropped hair, and Lawrie’s face was almost unrecognisable under her make-up.  
Emily’s fingers encountered the faint puckered seam of an old scar. “What’s that?” she whispered.  
Philip shook his head. “Old story,” he said.  
She pressed against him, bringing her mouth up to his ear. “I can think of something more fun to do. Can’t you?”  
He let her lead him into the darkness, away from the crowded lawn, into a field where the meadow grass was damp with dew underneath them. The disco music seemed at once loud but distant; Abba’s latest hit blaring into the night air. Far enough away from the artificial light spilling out of the marquee, they could see the dark cavern of the sky glimmering with starlight.  
Years later, on tour in a strange town with an afternoon to kill, Philip wandered into a cinema. It was a crime thriller, and it niggled at him through the film, wondering where he’d seen the actress who played the gangster’s moll before. Only when she levelled her gun at her victim’s most tender parts did it suddenly click and he ruefully remembered that soulless but enjoyable encounter; her tight, fit body bouncing above him, her face framed with bobbing curls haloed in the starlight.

 

Nicola, returning sleepily to Oxford on the only Sunday train, thought it had been a very successful party on the whole. It had all turned out well for Peter; everyone had liked the food, the drink hadn’t run out, the dance floor had stayed consistently full. There were no fights, no Pony Club teenager had gone home inappropriately drunk, no-one had fallen into the haha. Poor Tessa was suffering the worst that morning, with a bad stomach from scrounging too many scraps.  
And from her own point of view it had been pretty satisfactory too. There had been all that lovely dancing with Patrick. And then he’d been really quite sociable. He’d been quite willing to join the group of people around Lawrie and her friends, and hadn’t been as obviously uncomfortable as he used to be around lots of noisy people. Even when that rather pretentious boy Paul was showing off and spouting a lot of nonsense, he had been content to stay sitting in the circle, arm linked through hers, laughing along with the rest.

 

As soon as the smell of bacon rolls started to sizzle across the lawn from the hog-roast stand that morning, Philip and Miranda had gathered up Lawrie and her friends from the barn and loaded them back into the van, where they all curled up and went to sleep for the drive home. Emily jumped into the middle of the front seat, which then meant she rather annoyingly and uncomfortably fell fast asleep leaning against Miranda for the whole journey. When they finally stopped, she woke up blinking, said very sweetly, “Well, it was delightful to meet you,” and scrambled out over Miranda’s knees. (Several years later, Miranda saw and recognised that same pert, arch look on a character in a costume drama series on TV.) The others were all turfed out of the back, which now reeked unpleasantly of hungover alcohol fumes.  
“Yours or Jan’s?” Philip asked her.  
“I can get home from here, thanks,” she said, feeling like the walk.  
“If you’re sure.” He swung back into the driver’s seat, adding, “If you do see Jan, you can tell her she was right. As usual.”

 

Miranda did remember to tell Jan that evening, along with an edited account of the party. Cautious questioning on Jan’s part revealed that Nicola had spent most of the evening with the boy next door. So maybe that was something she didn’t have to worry about any more.  
Miranda was planning to go back to Dorset the following weekend. Having told her father about the contacts she had made at the party, he had agreed that she could go on her own with absolute discretion to make any offers she thought worthwhile.  
“Of course, chances are it will all be old tat,” said Miranda.  
“How long will it take?” asked Jan. “It’s quite a drive if you go there and back in one day.”  
“It depends if it’s any good. And how much they want to offer coffee and talk. It ‘ll take longer if there is something good; if it’s not, then it’s just no thanks and out the door. But there’s driving between the places as well. They’re quite spread out. I might end up staying in a B and B.”  
“Not at Trennels?”  
“Well, if Nick was there I could have asked. But I’d rather sort myself out, seeing as it’s a work trip.”  
Jan could see that Miranda was trying to play down how enthusiastic she was about this first chance to make professional decisions by herself, but she was buzzing with excitement all the same. If this worked out well, she might be able to convince her father that she could do the France trip herself. It occurred to Jan that she was going to be spending a second Saturday night on her own, and that, most unusually for her, she _minded_.  
“More wine?” she asked, tilting the end of the bottle at Miranda’s glass.  
“Oh, no. I had enough last night. You finish it.”  
“I’ll make coffee,“ she said, taking the empty bottle to the sink, wondering at the images which were wistfully creeping into her mind. A candle-lit harbour-side restaurant, a walk on the beach in the moonlight, a B and B with crisp sheets on a double bed. A voice in Jan’s head, not unlike her brother’s, said clearly, ‘She’d never ask because she thinks you’d say no’.  
“Miranda,” she said eventually, putting the mugs of coffee down. “Next weekend. I know it’s work, and you may not think it’s a good idea, so just say so in that case … ”  
Those vivid blue eyes, suddenly alert. Jan continued “But what do you think about me coming too? We could make a weekend of it?”  
“Oh _yes!_ ” said Miranda, eyes blazing with a start of unchecked joy, before saying, much more calmly, “What a lovely idea!”


	11. Jan Feeds Philip And Patrick Is Baited.

Philip was only back in London for a few odd days that summer. “Will I see you at all?” asked Jan, when he phoned.  
“If you want to come and sit in the launderette with me,” he suggested.  
“Oh, come on, you must have time for dinner. Come to mine and I’ll cook.”  
“Really? This I have to see.”  
He turned up looking lightly tanned and healthy, with sun-lightened hair and the faintest sprinkling of freckles across his face, But she winced when she hugged him.  
“Christ, Phil, don’t you eat when you’re away. You’re just skin and bone.”  
“Well, something smells nice.”  
“I hope so. It’s a new recipe. You‘re being my guinea pig.”  
“Isn’t Miranda coming?”  
“No. She’s in France.”  
“Without you?”  
“It’s business. With that friend of Nicola’s.”  
“Ah. The chinless wonder.”  
Jan glanced suspiciously at him. “That’s _not_ what Miranda called him.”  
“No, well, she’s a polite girl. I expect she used his name.” Philip eyed up the scene in the kitchen, steaming dishes on the stove and pans stacked by the sink. “Jan, have you gone all domestic? I don’t remember you cooking before?”  
“Oh well, I’m still not into it really - not the boring everyday stuff anyway. Only it’s quite pleasing when you’re doing it for someone else. And it gets expensive if you eat out all the time.”  
Jan piled food onto a plate and put it on the tiny kitchen table for Philip.  
“You’re alright, aren’t you?” asked Philip. “ You said Uncle Joe was being ok about the money?”  
“He’s being quite a pet really. He said he could see why 'someone my age' would rather be in London,” said Jan, bringing her own plate and sitting down.  
Actually their Uncle Joseph had been considerably annoyed and disappointed when Jan had first gone back to Norwich to explain that she was planning to take up a training job in London. But he had calmed down and been grudgingly impressed when Jan told him where she had got a job. “You’ve done well to get in there, Jan,” he’d said. Jan had tentatively mentioned the money, and he’d snapped at her suggestion of paying it back, “Nonsense girl. It wasn’t a loan. You’re my niece, and if I can’t help you, who can I?”  
“It’s not that anyway,” continued Jan. “It keeps things even if I produce dinner here quite often. I never realised just how rich Miranda actually is.” Philip raised an eyebrow. “ Sometimes when we’re out, I can see her wanting to offer to pay and then not in case I get prickly. I did _know_ her family was well-off, but I never thought what it might mean in everyday terms.”  
“Oh Jan, you’re not just making things complicated for yourself again? Miranda doesn’t care, does she?”  
“Of course not. She doesn’t know there’s anything to care about.”  
“Well, then?”  
“Things should be equal, that’s all. In any relationship. Don’t you think?”  
“In the important things. But money’s not important.”  
Jan looked at him doubtfully, thinking that that was all very well in theory but in practice it wasn’t so simple.  
“Still, what would I know?” added Philip, lightly.  
“About money or about relationships?”  
“Either,” he said. He looked at his neatly scraped plate. “That was very delicious, and if there was any more I would eat it?” he added hopefully.  
“Help yourself. You’d better finish it,” she told him. “It’s just, I’m finding it quite scary enough as it is.”  
“What is?”  
“Someone else’s happiness pinning on you. That sounds awfully self-important, doesn’t it?” She frowned, knowing she couldn’t explain. How she sometimes felt that she held Miranda’s heart in her hands, and what a fragile thing it could be. “It’s frightening that you could make someone else so unhappy if you couldn’t live up to what they want from you,” she said at last.  
Philip regarded her steadily. Finally he said, “See, I think Miranda is quite capable of deciding for herself what’s going to make her happy. She’s not fragile. One day I hope you’re going to stop worrying about it and just realise that you’re lucky she chose you.”  
“I do. Really.”  
“Good.”

When they were finished he washed up for her, even though she told him not to, while she made coffee and luckily remembered she still had a packet of dark chocolate digestives in the cupboard.  
“So this neighbour of Nicola’s, is he really a chinless wonder?” she asked, hoping that Miranda wasn’t going to be having a wasted trip.  
“I may have been being a little bit unfair. He has quite a usual sort of chin.”  
“But?” she prompted. But Philip, perhaps regretting saying anything, shrugged and changed the subject. “So have you been home at all?”  
She had, mostly to see her uncle, but she had spent a weekend with her father too.  
“How is everybody?” he asked.  
“All very well. The boys are off to boarding school in September.”  
“What have the poor little sods done to deserve that?”  
“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad. I never _minded_ being at boarding school.”  
He could have said, but didn’t, because they both knew it, that _that_ had been different.  
“They’re very sporty apparently. They’re looking forward to it,” explained Jan. “And they’d like to see you. If you’re ever playing nearby, they said, let them know and they’ll sneak out to come and watch.”  
“Well, _I’m_ not going to encourage them. Imagine if they got caught and expelled for coming to see me!” They both laughed. “I’ll send them a tape. Some of the stuff we’re coming up with now is really good. Dai’s found us a house in the middle of nowhere we’re going to stay in at the end of this tour for a couple of weeks. We’re just going to spend the whole time writing and working it all up.”  
For the rest of the evening they talked music, until all the biscuits were gone.

 

XXXXX

 

Miranda and Patrick had hired a car at the airport. Miranda liked driving, and would have happily driven the whole way, only she supposed that when Patrick offered to take a turn he probably genuinely wanted to, and she politely gave way. On the return journey she would be on her own, as Patrick was staying on for a couple of weeks.  
“It’s not quite a chateau,” he had said. “Definitely what we’d call a stately home though. Makes Mariot Chase look like a hut. The whole roof is on the verge of collapse apparently, though it doesn’t show. Hence - "  
Hence Miranda, and her camera and her father’s agreement as to how much she could provisionally offer for anything. Patrick explained where Claudie fitted in; a distant cousin of the house’s owners, she was very lightly employed by them as a sort of cook and housekeeper when they had guests staying with them over the summer months.  
Miranda was finding Patrick an agreeable, if occasionally odd companion. He had no small talk, but nudge him into talking about something that interested him and he was informative, enthusiastic, interesting. Miranda learned rather more about French history than she had been expecting to on the trip, as landmarks or well-known towns triggered him off.  
They stopped for lunch during the heat of midday, in a small town that Patrick knew about, with an hour or so left of their journey to go. They sat at a table outside on the pavement, under a striped parasol. Patrick, who could now speak quite passable French, ordered her omelette and his _moules frites._  
“You forget how delicious food can actually _be_ when you’re in England,” said Patrick, dunking one of his chips into the sauce. “Try one of these _moules_.”  
Miranda shook her head, forking omelette.  
“Oh gosh, sorry. That was me being an idiot, wasn’t it?”  
“Don’t worry,“ said Miranda, then as she thought he still looked properly mortified, added, “Honestly, it couldn’t matter _less_. It’s only habit now really. We’re not orthodox about anything. It’s like people who’ve been vegetarians for years who say they don’t even think of meat as food any more.”  
“Must be awkward though sometimes, like my ma worrying about fish on Fridays when it’s a dinner party.”  
“It it wasn’t force of habit, I don’t suppose I’d even bother. There’s other things that are considered equally to be - abominations - that I wouldn’t not do. If they applied.”  
“Like what?” asked Patrick, becoming interested.  
Perhaps because he seemed so easy to embarrass, a spirit of mischief made Miranda say, “Well. Some of the sex rules. A man shall not lie with another man, as with a woman…”  
“We have that one too. Well - of course - we would, wouldn’t we?” He looked uncomfortable, but whether from his slight mistake or the subject matter, she couldn’t tell.  
“Ours first. Do you ever wonder what your saints were thinking of though - allowing all the foods but taking all the fun out of sex?”  
“How - I mean, what’s different?”  
“Well, we don’t have _any_ idea of giving up sex and thinking it’s better to be celibate. You’re _supposed_ to enjoy it. Women are allowed to complain if they’re not getting - satisfaction- when they’re married.”  
She had scored a faint blush there, she was pleased to see. He pulled out one of the packets of French cigarettes he had bought at the airport. He offered her one, which she shook her head at, before lighting up himself.  
“Mind you, I think women get off more lightly when it comes to all these rules,” he observed.  
“You mean, on the long list of things that have been better for women throughout history? How do you mean?”  
“Well, like you said. The rules are all about how a _man_ shouldn’t do - whatever. They don’t say anything specific about women.”  
“Well, there’s a certain amount of telling us not to be lewd and licentious. And we mustn’t behave as they did in the land of Egypt.”  
“Whatever that was?”  
“Well, quite,” said Miranda, swallowing a smile. After a rambling and slightly drunk late night conversation once with Jan, they had arrived at the same point and enjoyed some rather practical speculation on the matter, after which ‘doing as in Egypt’ had become a coded and suggestive joke between them.  
Miranda signalled for the bill, and paid it. As Patrick fumbled for his wallet., she told him it all was on the business account and he demurred without fuss. As Jan very much hadn’t while they were in Dorset, quietly but firmly paying her share of everything.  
They wandered past shuttered shops, closed for long lunches, and paused in the shade of awnings to idly glance in the windows.  
“Is there anything you’re looking for?” asked Patrick, following her gaze as she looked at the display in a jewellery shop window.  
“Just thinking I might stop here on the way back.”  
“Claudie brought me here and dragged me round being her packhorse once. I lost count of how many bags I was carrying by the end. So whatever you want, I’m sure you’ll find it here,” said Patrick in a tone of gloomy reminiscence.  
“I’d just like to take a little present back for someone,” said Miranda, thinking aloud. “But it can’t be anything too flash.”

The heat of the afternoon had become oppressive by the time they arrived at the house. An elderly housekeeper informed them that _les jeunes_ were all by the pool, and showed them through several rooms to a door that opened onto a terrace, beyond which lay a glittering expanse of marble tiled swimming pool. Several young people were playing in the water.  
“Patrick!” called a girl in the pool, waving her arm.  
“That’s Claudie,” said Patrick. Wearing the tiniest of scarlet bikinis she emerged from the pool, revealing a very tanned and toned body. She caught up a silk wrap from one of the sun-loungers and slung it over her shoulders. Without bothering to wrap it round herself she strode up to Patrick and embraced him, kissing him cheek to cheek but letting herself ‘miss’ and graze him on the side of his mouth each time. Miranda watched in secret amusement; clearly this girl also enjoyed the game of trying to make Patrick blush, and she had succeeded far more spectacularly than Miranda had. Where she had pressed her dripping wet body against him he was soaked all the way up his front. Claudie’s eyes glinted with surprised appreciation as she saw that Miranda was enjoying the joke, but she shook hands demurely enough. Coming along the side of the pool, like a graceful golden panther, was a boy of about their own age. He reminded Miranda of a bronze boy her father had once had in the Shop, perfectly proportioned and sculpted but with a strangely blank, amoral look to his beautiful face. He shook hands languidly with Miranda, as Claudie introduced him as Etienne.  
“No business today,” she said. “You must come for a swim. Francois and Marie are away this afternoon. In the morning we will show you everything you need to see.” Her glance flickered over the others. “ Patrick and Etienne will no doubt be able to amuse themselves while we are occupied.”

 

XXXX

 

Miranda and Jan lay on the bed looking at the picture Miranda had propped against the wall. Miranda was visualising the best way to mount and frame it, as the canvas was still only stretched around a wooden frame.  
“It’s beautiful,” said Jan. “Are you sure you don’t want to take it to your house?”  
“No. It wouldn’t look right there.”  
“It reminds me of home,” said Jan, then catching Miranda’s quick glance, “In a good way, I mean. All that sky.”  
The picture was a landscape Miranda had found at the back of a stall in France, in which the fields, shimmering with the promise of spring grass, lay outstretched under a towering sky.  
“I do love it,” said Jan. “But you shouldn’t have.”  
“Oh nonsense. It was only a few francs. He wasn’t expecting to sell it, I think, and he was so pleased that I wanted it.”  
“The thing is,” she continued. “He was just this young guy who was churning out a lot of tourist stuff, and then, he could do something like this. This is what’s exciting.”  
“What about all that Louis Whoever furniture. Was your father pleased?”  
“Oh, I think so. It’s impressive stuff. But they wanted to sell it, we wanted to buy it. It’s just glorified haggling in the end. But finding something new that the artist has only just created, that no-one else knows about yet - that’s what I _really_ want to do.”

 

“What?” said Jan, much later, sleepily aware that Miranda was lying awake, frowning at the ceiling.  
Miranda sighed. “It’s somebody else’s business really.”  
“Oh. Sorry.”  
“No. I mean, it’s not my business either.”  
“Ah.” Jan rolled over to face Miranda, raising herself on an elbow.  
“It’s just that I think I know something that someone else doesn’t and I don’t know whether I should tell them.”  
“Almost certainly not, I should think.”  
“That’s mostly what I think. But still..” Miranda uncertain, trailed off.  
“So do you definitely know whatever this thing is?”  
“I’m fairly sure. But no, not a hundred per cent.”  
“And is the person you want to tell heading for a major disaster if they don’t know?”  
“That’s the bit I don’t know,” said Miranda unhappily.  
“All my instincts would say to keep well out of it. If it was me.”  
“Yes,” said Miranda and was silent for a moment, before adding, “You’re probably right.”  
In the near darkness, Jan watched as Miranda almost visibly decided not to think about it any more. Her head shifted on the pillow. “Miranda?”  
“Mm?”  
“I'm quite awake now?”  
“Oh. _Yes_?” and as she had hoped, Miranda turned and reached out for her under the sheets.


	12. New Term.

“You’re doing _what?_ ” said Giles. They were on the deck of the Tommy Noddy, stowing equipment and making sure that everything was left tidy. Giles, on leave, had suggested coming out for a few day’s sailing with her, if she didn‘t mind. Which she didn‘t at all, feeling secretly flattered, but it was still with some trepidation that she agreed. She knew her boat fairly well now, and was confident handling it by herself, but she still occasionally made inexperienced errors of judgement. Out on her own she could usually rectify them quite calmly; if they happened with Giles there watching she would feel a complete idiot and the worst sort of land-lubber.  
However, it turned out to be friendly and fun. At first he insisted on rather ostentatiously calling her Captain and saying ‘aye aye sir’ to everything she said, but he got bored with that after the first hour or two, and then was easy company. They sailed across to France and back, in proper holiday weather. The sun shone, the breezes were light but steady, and nothing untoward happened to provoke any memories of less successful trips.  
But as they packed away in Yetland Cove, after discussing the course she was going to take when she went on her long trip, Nicola had mentioned how she was earning money. Giles was astounded, especially as he hadn’t seemed to even know that Nicola could sing. In fact, thought Nicola, he didn’t seem to know much about any of them from Rowan down; natural enough she supposed with having been away so much but odd-seeming all the same.  
He brought it up again at breakfast the next morning at Trennels. Only Nicola, Lawrie and their mother were at the table. Peter had taken to having his bacon sandwiches packed up when he went out first thing. This supposedly saved him from having to come all the way back from the other side of the farm, as he said, though Lawrie, who was the only one around enough to notice, suspected he was doing it to avoid Giles as much as possible.  
“I don’t know what’s happening to this family. You’ve got Dad being put ashore, Peter turned into a lubberly farmer and now it seems Nicola’s being bar room entertainment,” he said in mock disapproval.  
Lawrie snorted into her coffee. “That’s _hardly_ what I said,” said Nicola indignantly.  
“What on earth are you talking about darling?” said Mrs Marlow, absently looking up from her letters.  
“You make it sound as if Nick was twirling around in heels and - tassels , in front of a horde of drunken sailors,” said Lawrie, “not singing folk songs to a few old fogeys.”  
“That’s not fair either,” said Nicola, who now knew and liked many of the people who came.  
“Yes, Nicola, you never did properly explain all this,” said her mother. “Who is this person who’s got you singing in pubs?”  
“Philip. You must have seen him at the party,” Lawrie said.  
“Did I? You brought so many peculiar people, darling, and I’m sure I didn’t know one from another.”  
“He’s Jan Scott’s brother - from school, you know?” said Nicola.  
Nicola had not yet come across the magic charm of mentioning a connection with one’s old school as a way of inspiring unwarranted trust, but it immediately worked on her mother. Pam’s eyes drifted back to the estate agent’s letter containing the details of flats in London. Geoff had decided to take the desk job rather than retire early, and she was already looking at possible flats to rent. He was at sea until he came home for Christmas, and then he would take up his new job in the new year. And the one advantage of that, thought Pam, was that there was no reason not to book a weekend away to go and watch Ginty ride at Burghley.

 

XXXXX

 

Nicola went back to a new home in Oxford. Robyn and four other friends had decided to move into a house for their second year; when one of them dropped out Nicola was offered the last spare room. When she arrived, she found she had been left the attic room which was up two flights of stairs. Nicola liked it all the more for the faults which the others had found in it, which included steeply sloping ceilings which meant it was only possible to stand upright in a narrow strip down the middle of room. The wind howled across the roof on stormy autumn nights, but when it was still and clear, Nicola could see the stars through the skylight which was the only window, The main advantage of the house, apart from being able to come in at night as late as they pleased, was that it had a phone and people could ring them.  
She rang Philip on her first morning back.  
“So have you been practising over the summer?” he asked.  
“Almost every day,” she replied. She had, while out on the Tommy Noddy on her own. Apart from the exhilarating sensation of really belting a song out with only the wind and the waves to hear, she had a notion that she could have admitted to no-one - that her boat liked it when she sang. As of course it should, because her voice was at least partly paying for its future.  
“Good,” said Philip. “So can you do London in a fortnight? I’ll come to you any day next week - is one rehearsal enough? Good. While we’re at Joy’s we’ll get our next night there booked, and I’ll let you know about Reading then too. Ok?”

 

After only a few days of Oxford life the long summer holiday seemed a surprisingly distant memory. Nicola rang Lawrie to tell her she was coming to London.  
“Shall I try and bring Patrick again?” enquired Lawrie.  
“But you don’t see him now, do you?” asked Nicola. Lawrie was also sharing a house with friends for her second year at drama school, presumably to Mrs Merrick’s relief. “He sometimes comes in to the coffee place we go on our way home,” answered Lawrie. “Quite often actually.”  
“Really?” said Nicola, surprised. It seemed rather an un-Patrick-like thing to do.  
“So I’ll bring him if I see him, shall I?”  
“I suppose so. I mean, I don’t mind,” said Nicola. On the one hand - seeing him, on the other - him hearing her sing. “Look, Lal? If you do come, don’t sit right in the front goggling at me. I mean - it can be a bit off-putting when people I know are right there staring at me. It’s easier when it’s strangers. I can sort of blur them out more.”  
“I don’t see why. I never mind,” said Lawrie, then added slyly, “Do I have to do that _whoever_ I come with, or is it just Patrick?”  
“Honestly Lawrie - you’re the one who complains if people don’t tell you things! Do you ever wonder _why?_ ”  
“I was only _asking_ ,” said Lawrie, pretending to sound injured. “Anyway, I think you might be on a losing wicket there anyway.”  
“What ever do you mean?” asked Nicola, as if she didn’t understand.  
“If it was going to happen, it would have happened by now,” said Lawrie.  
Which, thought Nicola was the unworded thought which she had been uncomfortably aware of for quite some time, and she didn’t feel especially grateful to Lawrie for pointing it out.

 

XXXXX

 

Nicola sang her first song to an audience of unfamiliar faces, which was just how she preferred it. Miranda was reluctantly away with her mother and Jan had piles of work to catch up on. Dai and Robyn were both there, but leaning on the bar as usual, all but out of sight.  
Lawrie had obeyed her request ostentatiously well. Nicola noticed her and Patrick sat as far to the back and side of the crowd as it was possible for them to be, half obscured from her view once she was on stage by a pillar.  
However, she was to be surprised by a completely unexpected person in the audience. As Philip played the first few notes of ‘It’s not me babe’ she became aware that the unobtrusive latecomer who was stood hesitantly at the very back was her sister Ann. Her moment of surprised recognition was the same moment her cue was played and for the first time ever she missed her first line. Philip covered, showing off as he improvised until Nicola glared at him and he played smoothly round to her opening notes again. Annoyed with herself, she concentrated and made no more mistakes, but at the back of her mind she was wondering, not only why Ann was there, but when had she last seen her?  
Ann hadn’t come to the party, or home at all over the summer, or for last Christmas. Had she even come home the previous summer? Surely she must have? And the surprising thing that was slowly dawning on her, was not only that she’d known that Ann was working at a hospital in London and had never thought to get in touch but that Ann had made no effort either to contact them.  
“What threw you?” said Philip, as they finished.  
“I noticed my sister walking in, it just distracted me at the wrong moment.”  
“I have been wondering if you were _ever_ going to make a mistake,” he said slyly.  
“So I have. Are you happy now?”  
“Proves you’re human. But why does your sister make you so cross?”  
“She doesn’t!”  
“This is just your 'very specially happy to see her' face?”  
Nicola didn’t dignify that with an answer, and walked over to where Ann had found Lawrie and Patrick. Philip, uninvited but curious, followed.  
Ann smiled warily at Nicola. Lawrie was asking, loudly, “How ever did you know we were here?”  
“I saw Nicola’s name on the door,” said Ann, as if that was obvious. “I mean, I was expecting it to be someone else with the same name obviously, but I had to look. I had no idea!”  
“ _What?_ ” said Lawrie. “Her name on the door!” just as Nicola simultaneously said “My name - on the door?”  
“Yes,” said Ann. “Where it says ‘Live Music Tonight’, underneath it has your name chalked in big letters.”  
Nicola looked at Philip. He shrugged. “Whose name did you think they’d use?”  
“I wasn’t expecting to have my name outside at all!”  
Lawrie said crossly, “I have to go and see!” and stomped off.  
Philip grinned at Ann. “I bet you wanted to knock their heads together all the time when they were little?”  
“Oh no!” said Ann, gravely, but her mouth twitched all the same. “Sorry - I’m Ann. That was beautiful - what you and Nicola did, I mean.”  
Nicola, unfairly fearing that Ann was going to gush, turned to Patrick with a quick grin and jerk of her eyebrows, and they subtly separated themselves. Lawrie passed them looking sulky, but seeing Philip about to buy Ann a drink, hastened to get one too.  
“Not to embarrass you or anything,” said Patrick, “But I thought it was properly amazing. Just so you know.” He grinned at her obvious dislike of praise, and added, “I never knew you could do all that.” They drifted to the other end of the bar from the others. “How do you decide which songs to do?” Patrick asked. “Some of them -almost - brought on my very unfortunate music-listening affliction.”  
“Oh, they didn’t?”  
“Truly. Luckily Lawrie was trying to whisper at the top of her voice to Ann which was just enough distraction to divert me. Doesn’t Ann look different by the way? I can’t have seen her for yonks.”  
Ann’s two long plaits had gone, replaced with a practical short bob. But there was more of a change than that. She looked, thought Nicola, much more like Rowan than she ever had before: she had lost the eager to please air which had always irritated Nicola, and appeared brisker and more sure of herself.  
“No, I can’t think when I last saw her,” admitted Nicola. “She’d got quite un-Annish before she left school though.”  
“Un-Annish?”  
“Well, not fussing about us. Doing her thing and letting us do ours, but quite unfriendly in a way.”  
Philip tapped her arm, appearing beside her. “Your hard-earned,” he said, slipping her the money. “Drink?”  
Patrick cut in smoothly. “I was just getting ours, thanks.”  
“No problem. We’re just over there.” Philip glanced at Patrick, an unreadable expression in those unsettling green eyes, and then with a slight smile at Nicola, he turned away.  
After he was gone Patrick said, a little too jokily, “Don’t you think all that hair must get annoying? I never know why _girls_ want it all that much.”  
“Shall we get these drinks, then?” asked Nicola, feeling uncomfortable but not certain why. After they were ordered and paid for, she tried to reclaim the conversation, “Actually, I don’t think Ann ever forgave us for the Oeschli thing.”  
“That was a _stupid_ business, wasn’t it?” said Patrick, quite unexpectedly.  
Nicola looked at him in surprise. “Why? Do you think we shouldn’t have done it?”  
“Probably not. How do we know he was better off with his dad in the end?” asked Patrick. “And Giles and Peter could have …” He left that unfinished, then said wryly, “The trouble is you think you know better than anyone else when you’re sixteen, don’t you?”  
“Did you?” said Nicola, doubtfully.  
“Remember me banging on about the English Mass?”  
“You mean - don’t you care any more?”  
“Oh yes, sometimes. When I think just about _that_. But there’s other things that could make me ditch the whole thing, or get me ditched, I suppose, that are so much more - serious.”  
“Like what?” asked Nicola.  
“ Maybe just thinking the whole thing’s nonsense. But look, I didn’t mean to start all that now. Shall we go over?”

Philip had discovered that Ann played piano. “See, I think if you put a piano at the end of each ward all your patients would get better in half the time.”  
“I don’t think the NHS could run to that somehow.”  
“No. That’s why this is better,” said Philip touching his guitar case.  
“It’s true though. There was a study in the Lancet about the effect of music on patients with certain conditions…. “  
Lawrie, feeling rather out of the conversation - which was boring and about things she had no interest in, slid into a private day dream. When _she_ opened in the West End her name would be up in bright pink neon flashing lights. The posters would all say, ‘See Lawrence S. Marlow in..’ and then the name of the play in much smaller letters. And she wouldn’t be Sophia Lawrence, she would use her own name. The Marlow name was going to be famous because of _her_.

 

Patrick and Nicola joined the table that the others were all sat round. It was a long sort of trestle type table though, and at their end they only caught snippets of the others’ conversation, so it was far easier to go on quietly talking to each other, until Nicola, glancing at her watch, realised she and Robyn were going to have to make a move if they were going to catch the last train home.

 

XXXXX

 

“I liked your sister,” said Robyn.  
Nicola made a non-committal sound. Robyn looked at her curiously.  
“She’s really nice though. You never said. Much nicer than Lawrie.”  
“Robyn,” said Nicola crossly. “You know you say things when you’ve been drinking? Other people have to remember them all the time afterwards!”  
“I haven’t drunk that much tonight!“ said Robyn, indignantly and almost truthfully. Then aware of Nicola glowering, said “Anyway, sorry. I mean, I know she’s your twin.  
“What were you all talking about all that time anyway?” asked Nicola.  
Robyn shrugged. “All sorts. Music. Nursing.”  
“Nursing?”  
“Dai’s sister’s a nurse too,” Robyn explained. “What’s the matter? I’d say you were jealous if you hadn’t been paired off with that boy for the whole time. Who is he anyway? Is he the one that’s immunised you against Philip?”


	13. This Is Why You Shouldn't Tell People Things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Character death (natural death of aged character).

One advantage of her attic room was that she could work remarkably undisturbed. People downstairs, looking for distraction when they couldn’t settle to their own work, were put off by the flight of stairs and wandered into each others’ rooms instead. And in her own lofty cocoon high above it all, she herself wasn’t distracted by the comings and goings of visitors and could resist the pull of kettle or gossip. Even so, she was startled to glance at her watch late one morning on hearing a distant yell, and realise that she had been working for over three hours without a break. Not only was it already lunchtime and she was starving, but she didn’t have that long before she had to set off to meet Philip at Joy’s, the main disadvantage of the house being that it was a very long walk to any of the places that they ever needed to go.  
She belatedly realised that the shout she had heard was someone calling her, and that voices and feet were sounding on the first floor landing under her stairs. “Nick! You’ve got a visitor!”  
Halfway down her stairs, she couldn’t have been more astonished to see Patrick. Patrick, looking as out of place and confusingly alien as one of his hawks would have looked if it had flown in the window.  
“Patrick! What ever are you doing here?”  
“I was at home for the weekend. I’m on my way back to London.” His smile was hesitant. Afterwards she realised that it was the look that people have before breaking bad news, but she didn’t get it straightaway.  
“This is a bit out of your way, isn’t it? Do you want some coffee or something?”  
“No. That is, maybe later. Can we go to your room or somewhere?”  
She was still standing like a fool blocking the stairs. “Of course!” She led the way back up. Patrick sat down uneasily on her chair, and she perched on the edge of the bed.  
“Nick, it’s Buster.” Patrick didn’t seem to know how to go on, so she knew instantly. “Oh, Nick, I don’t know how to tell you..”  
“Just say it then. Quickly.”  
Buster was dead.  
He wouldn’t have known a thing about it, Patrick told her. Sellars had seen it happen. The Hunt had been out and come closer to Mariot Chase land than they had expected. Sellars, hearing the horns, had gone to fetch Buster in from the orchard. He’d seen the old pony throw up his head, pricking his ears at the hound music, and break into a canter towards the orchard hedge. Sellars swore Buster had seen his stride and was going to jump it, but before he got there he gave a funny leap and stumble and hit the ground. By the time Sellars got to his head he was already dead. A heart attack, over in seconds.  
Patrick looked anxiously at Nicola. “He was never ill or lame,” he said. “I’m sure if he could have chosen how he went....” He trailed off.  
Nicola nodded dumbly. It had to happen sometime, of course; she’d always known that one day the orchard would stand empty and the apples fall unnoticed into overgrown grass.  
“They’ve buried him at home,” said Patrick. “Dad didn’t have the heart to ... well, you know.”  
Send him to the kennels was what he meant, as Nicola knew. She felt numb, not like crying yet, although later, when she was alone….. Disconnected thoughts followed one another - he was Patrick’s pony too - it was decent of him to come and not to phone…..  
“What about that coffee? If you like?” suggested Patrick.  
“Yes, let’s,” said Nicola automatically, but then remembered, “Oh no. I’m supposed to be meeting Phil.” She looked at her watch. “I should have gone by now.”  
“Do you have to bother?” asked Patrick, frowning. “It hardly seems - well, are you going to feel like it?”  
“I can’t just not turn up. Not when he comes specially from London,” she said. It was always better when these things happened to keep busy anyway. “Only, sorry, I need to get going. I’m going to be late as it is.”  
Patrick was looking doubtful. “If you’re sure. I can drive you there at least. Don’t rush.”  
The drive in his Mini took minutes rather than the half hour it would have taken her, even walking fast, to get there. He pulled up outside the pub.  
“Look, Nick, are you sure this is a good idea?”  
“Honestly, I‘m much better off doing things. Don‘t you find?”  
“If you say so.”  
“Patrick,” she said, preparing to get out. His eyes met hers, dark with concern. “Thanks. For coming, I mean. It was - better - to hear it this way, I mean.”  
“Oh - well, I’m glad I saw you - I mean, you could have been in a lecture or something.”  
He reached across - she thought to open the door - and then his arms wrapped round her in a hug. Astonished, she was slow to react. It wasn’t that comfortable and she half-turned, and his lips brushed her cheek.  
“Will you be alright?” he asked with a faintly embarrassed air, his arms dropping awkwardly as he pulled back.  
She assured him she would, said good-bye and scrambled out of the car. That had been - unexpected, both the hug and the way it had made her feel. Because what she felt was flat and odd.  
She waved as Patrick drove off, and turned to see Philip coming along the road.  
She thought he seemed unusually distant as he greeted her, and began to wonder if Patrick had been right and she should have called this off.  
Because she should have known she wasn’t going to be able to get away with it.  
They started to warm up, but her throat felt tight and her voice wasn’t going to work properly. Philip put down the guitar and said, “ _What?_ ”  
It would be much better not to talk about it. She said “What do you mean, what?”  
“What’s happened?” he asked, patiently. “Have you had a row with -?”  
“Oh no, nothing - like that.” It occurred to her that he had met Buster which made it suddenly much easier.  
“Oh Nick,” he said in sudden, genuine sympathy, after she told him. And that was why you _shouldn’t_ tell people things, she thought, because once you did, it was much harder not to feel all hot and blurry and as if a hard ball was pushing at the back of your eyes.  
“Sorry,” she said, turning away.  
“Don’t be stupid, Nick. You’re allowed to cry!” he said gently, coming over to her, as she brushed angrily at her eyes. “I don’t have any tissues I’m afraid, but I do make my shoulder available in these situations.” It was said very lightly and she half-laughed and shook her head, but she found herself there anyway. It was surprisingly nice, feeling the scratchy softness of his jumper under her eyes and an arm wrapping softly around her. But honestly - one couldn’t really do this - and she pulled away abruptly.  
She turned and went to the window. After a moment she heard notes sounding on the guitar, snatches of different tunes, then something she didn’t know. When she thought she had her face under control, she went back over.  
“Listen,” he said. “The words aren’t right, not the verses anyway, but it‘s saying goodbye to a friend..”  
He played, then sang for her -

‘And here's to you my ramblin' boy  
May all your ramblin' bring you joy  
And here's to you my ramblin' boy  
May all your ramblin' bring you joy.

He left me here, to ramble on  
My ramblin' pal, is dead and gone  
If when we die, we go somewhere  
I'll bet you a dollar, he's ramblin' there.’

She liked his voice, although it was usually only when he was teaching her a new song that he ever sang himself. She had asked him why, once, and he had just laughed and asked her if she had _heard_ Dai sing?  
“Shall I try it?” she said now.  
“No. I don’t think it’s a song for you,” he said thoughtfully. “Actually, what we need is a drink. I don’t suppose we can get a proper one at this time, can we? Shall we go and have coffee somewhere?”  
“It’s ok. I could go on now.”  
“There’s no need. There’s nothing that can’t wait until another day.”  
“But you’ve come all this way and it's wasted your time.”  
“I shall decide what’s a waste of my time. If I want to take you out for tea and cakes then that’s what we’ll do.”  
She remembered that she was hungry. “I didn’t actually have any lunch yet.”  
“Me neither. So, where do you go for egg and chips round here then?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHXOWAsNeJU for Ramblin' Boy.


	14. Dangerous Corner.

By early November, Lawrie had announced that they _all_ had to come to the Priestley play her year group were performing on the last day of term. And after the play, she and her house-mates were throwing a party.  
“You are going to bring lots of people?” she asked Nicola.  
“No. I’ll ask Miranda and Patrick and that’s it.”  
Lawrie would have argued, but they’d had this out before. “I’ve invited both of _them_ already,” she said. “What about you?” she asked Philip hopefully.  
He shook his head. “It’s a Friday night. We’re always playing somewhere.”  
“Well, you can come onto the party, can‘t you?” Lawrie told him.  
“Maybe,” he said, meaning almost certainly not.

 

It turned out that Miranda couldn’t go either. “Mum’s having an evening for Hannukah,” she told Nicola gloomily.  
“Oh. Have you always done that? Only I don’t remember it before?”  
“Well, it’s only a candle and a prayer really. Quite often I was at school when it happened. But it’s never been that big a deal. Mum wants to impress her friends. Some rabbis in America are starting to make more of a thing of it, and Mum wants to show how up on everything she is now. Really I think it’s an excuse to stop children minding when all their friends get presents for Christmas.”  
“Presents aren’t a _bad_ thing,” Nicola pointed out.  
“Bit late for me,” answered Miranda. “Actually, I don’t know what to do about Jan.”  
“Do what about Jan?”  
“Christmas. I’d like to get her something but is that odd?”  
“Why don’t you ask her? She probably doesn’t know what to do about you either?” suggested Nicola, practically.  
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Miranda, much struck.

 

Philip would certainly have never thought of going. Only the band was doing so well now, that it was getting harder to fit in the performances with Nicola. And they’d missed one altogether when she’d come down with the cough that was going round her college. So even if the chinless wonder was going to be there, he felt reluctantly drawn. It was like a loose tooth that one can’t leave alone even when it hurts. So when Lawrie reminded him, he agreed that if he could borrow Jan’s car for the night he just might show up.

 

“I don’t know what Phil thinks he’s up to,” said Jan, as she washed up coffee cups. “Why would he be chasing round London to go to that party?”  
Miranda, who thought it was perfectly obvious what was going on, and who assumed Jan’s question was rhetorical, said lightly, “The trouble is, _you_ don’t know what it’s like.”  
“I don’t know what _what’s_ like?”  
“All that being hopelessly devoted to someone who barely knows you’re there,” said Miranda, flippantly.  
“That sounds _most_ unlike Phil,” said Jan, then seemed to do a slight double-take. “Really? - I was worried about her - not him.”  
Miranda was silent, thinking that perhaps she had said more than she ought. Jan mused, frowning, “Phil’s never been serious about anyone ever. In fact I’ve always wondered if there was any girl who could compete - with his music, I mean.”  
Miranda shrugged. Jan went on distractedly wiping over the same section of work top. “Still, even if you‘re right, he‘s hardly saving himself for her.”  
“True,” said Miranda.  
“Anyway,” Jan continued after a moment, in a changed tone of voice, “What do you mean, someone who barely knows you’re there?”  
“Oh, Nick’s always oblivious to what people think of her. Poor Esther was miserable for _weeks_ one term because she thought Nick was angry with her, and Nick couldn’t have been more astonished when I pointed out that Esther really _minded_ …”  
“I wasn’t talking about Nicola any more,” said Jan meaningfully. “What would you have thought really if a Sixth Former had taken any special notice of a Third Year?”  
“Oh,” said Miranda. “I _know_. But all the same - ”  
“And for the record,” said Jan, coming over, “I always knew you were _there_.”

XXX

Nicola sat waiting. Lawrie had finally cleaned off her stage make-up and was slowly re-applying what had become her usual look, layers of eye-liner and very black mascara. They were the only ones left in the girls’ shabby dressing room. The others had gone on ahead to get the party started.  
“It’s not really my sort of play,” Lawrie said, discontentedly. “Is it? All those awful people standing round talking in drawing rooms.”  
“No,” agreed Nicola. “But you were good - you could _do_ it. I forgot it was you when you were on. I mean, you really were Betty.”  
“It’s all the most unlikely woffle,” Lawrie complained. “What did you think of the others?”  
“The one who did Gordon was good.”  
“Paul? That was type-casting,” said Lawrie sniffily. “What about Michael?”  
“He was probably the best thing in it,” said Nicola honestly.  
“Yes, he was, wasn’t he?” Lawrie looked pleased, rather than put out. Having finished her eyes, she started applying a gothic shade of red lipstick. She pouted experimentally when she was done, then said, “I wish we could do a proper play next.”  
“What would you like to do?”  
“Blanche Dubois,” said Lawrie, “Or Lady Macbeth.”  
“You’re too young for them yet,” said Nicola, needlessly, because Lawrie knew that perfectly well herself.  
Lawrie inspected her face in the grimy mirror. “Do you suppose this is what it’ll be like when I’m working?”  
“What?”  
“Lots of parts I don’t really want to do?”  
“I expect so. If you want to work.”

 

Winding down after a gig like that took time. They’d been sublime, note-perfect, inspired. An hour afterwards there were still enough hangers-on around that they could do anything they wanted with the rest of the night, go anywhere with anyone. But when they were finally kicked out of the building, Philip left the others to it and discovered that driving across London at night on his own was a strangely enjoyable way to calm down.  
Lawrie lived in a street of once respectable Victorian houses; now run-down and split into flats or inhabited by students. Philip correctly guessed that the house with lights blazing from every window must be the one where the party was at. As he pulled up he saw a figure hesitating outside on the steps in the light from the open door, and felt the sudden quickening of recognition.

“Nicola?” he said. “What are you doing out here?”  
“I - I was just getting some fresh air,” she said in a hard, distant voice.  
“It’s freezing,” he pointed out. Her glance flicked his way, and he realised that she was not, as he had feared, on the verge of tears; in fact, she was furious. He instinctively flinched at the cold, blue blaze in her eyes.  
“What’s happened? Nick?”  
“It’s none of your business!”  
He hesitated, doubtful, but then she shivered convulsively. She had come outside in only a T-shirt, and the night was bright with frost in the air. “Look, Nick, you’re freezing. Come and sit in the car, at least.”  
She looked round as if hoping for a way out, then nodded and followed him. He opened the passenger door, and she slid in. The car was still warm from the journey, but he found an old coat of Jan’s which lived on the back seat, and tossed it to Nicola as he got in himself.  
“Now, tell me what he’s done and I can go and hit him for you,” he said, then wished he hadn’t as she started and glared at him. “That was meant to be a joke,” he said reproachfully. “I’m just going to sit here very quietly now, and mind my own business.”

Nicola sat and unfroze, physically and mentally. She’d gone upstairs, to what she thought was Lawrie’s room where she‘d left her bag earlier, and she must have turned the wrong door handle off the unfamiliar and badly lit landing, Or maybe she hadn’t. Maybe they hadn’t cared what room they were in. What she had seen kept replaying in front of her eyes, as if branded on the inside of her eyelids. It felt as if she had stared at the scene for hours in gloriously technicoloured slow-motion, so that every detail was clear; but in reality her reactions were quick, she had pulled the door to almost before she even realised she was seeing something she shouldn’t. They couldn’t have even been aware of the door opening. They certainly hadn’t stopped what they were doing. Funny, she’d assumed that Patrick had sloped off home without saying goodbye when she first became aware that he wasn’t around any more, and she’d hardly known that boy Paul was even at the party. And how stupid her first reaction had been, almost panicking in her desire to get as far away as possible in case anyone knew she’d seen. And not able to face that noisy mob downstairs, she’d instinctively headed outside to get away…  
Philip really did just sit there waiting. Like Jan, she thought, he had disappeared entirely inside himself. His fingers drummed silently on the steering wheel, so she supposed he was probably playing music inside his head. She started to feel uneasy - she didn’t suppose _she’d_ have bothered if someone had snapped at _her_ like that.  
“How - how was your gig?” she asked, a little timidly.  
He turned towards her, coming to attention. “Really tight. You should come and see us again some time.”  
“I - I’m sorry - I was rude - before.”  
“Not at all,” he grinned at her, not at all offended. “Would you really not like me to go and hit someone?”  
“I thought you told me you weren’t very good at that sort of thing?”  
“How very unflattering of you to have remembered.”  
“Anyway no-one - no-one’s done anything. To me, I mean.”  
“So you were raging at the injustice of the world? No, I know - I’m not asking!” he added hastily. “But where do you want to go now?”  
She hadn’t meant to say anything to anyone ever, but relieved that he was being funny and friendly and she didn’t seem to have lost two friends in one evening, she found herself talking. “If someone was -  _friends_ with someone else, why wouldn’t they tell them, if they were - if they were gay?”  
“Any number of reasons, I should think,” he replied lightly, but his eyes were suddenly intent.  
“I know the obvious - but if you were really properly friends?”  
“Are we talking about your friend Patrick by any chance?” he asked, very softly.  
“Oh. Is it - is it obvious? To everyone else, I mean?”  
“No,” he replied, after a frowning pause. “ _I_ thought - ” and he let the end trail off. She could guess what he’d thought; hadn’t she thought that too? But at least it hadn’t been so blindingly obvious that everyone else had known and been _laughing_ ……  
“I don’t understand. Friends are supposed to ....” and she stopped. She thought she sounded like a ten-year-old whining at being left out of a secret.  
“Maybe he didn’t know himself?” suggested Philip, throwing her a straw of comfort to grasp at.  
“How couldn’t he? Miranda - ” she paused, because now she was talking about someone else. But after all, it wasn’t as if he didn’t know about that. “Miranda says she knew for as long as she knew it was something to know.”  
“Well, not everyone is as switched on as Miranda,” he pointed out. “When it comes to knowing what they want.”  
Nicola was silent, unconvinced.  
“Maybe he didn’t _want_ to know?” Philip suggested.  
Nicola knew. Knew about that long, long line of Catholic ancestors and Mariot Chase waiting for the next in line. And that was where her racing thoughts had crashed into a wall and would go no further. And one thing was for certain, she wasn’t going to tell Philip what she feared, because she wasn’t going to end up crying all over him again - not about _this._  
When it became obvious that she wasn’t going to respond, Philip said, “Where are you staying tonight?”  
“With Lawrie. In there,” she said, reluctantly.  
He hesitated. “Look, if you like, why don’t you come back and stay at mine?” He added, mistaking Nicola’s look, “I mean, there’s a bed _and_ a sofa,” although actually, that thought hadn’t crossed Nicola’s mind.  
Suddenly relieved, Nicola thought, yes, why not. She could deal with everything else much better tomorrow. Although, glancing at her watch as Philip started the engine, she realised that it had already been tomorrow for quite some time.

Philip gave her the bedroom. When she protested, he said she didn’t want to have to explain to Dai why she was there if he came in drunk and fell over her. Which she supposed was true. His bedroom was just a tiny box room really, very bare and surprisingly tidy. Having thought she wouldn’t sleep, she drifted off almost straightaway, breathing in the unfamiliar masculine scent of some sort of aftershave.

She was woken early by the opposing discomforts of both a raging thirst and a full bladder. It was a pity the body couldn’t arrange things better, she thought, not wanting to go crashing around looking for things and waking people up yet. She lay in the warmth under the covers trying to order her thoughts.  
Patrick had abandoned friendship with her once before of course, when Ginty had been around. And when the Ginty thing was over and done with, everything had changed, even once they were friends again. Had she really felt attracted to him, or had she just slotted into the empty space left by Ginty, thinking that was the way it had to be, because friendship hadn’t been enough _before_? She mentally prodded herself, trying to see where it hurt.  
Eventually, she had to move and she crept out through the sitting room to the bathroom. The air was decidedly chilly, and she felt guilty seeing Philip asleep in a huddle on the sofa. The sofa wasn’t small, but it was certainly shorter than he was. He was asleep in last night’s clothes and all he had over him was a pile of coats, some of which had slid off. Tentatively, she picked up the biggest one off the floor and was about to lay it back over him, when he stirred, sending the whole lot rolling to the floor.  
“Nicola,” he said.  
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”  
“What time is it?”  
“About seven.”  
“Oh.” He lay sleepily watching her.  
“Shall I make some tea?” she suggested helpfully.  
“If you can find everything.” Yawning, he eventually swung himself up, and disappeared into the bathroom.  
It was easy enough, and she had made two mugs when he joined her. Silentlly, he pulled a battered bag of sugar over and spooned it into his mug. Whether it was because the kitchen was tiny, or because she had spent the night in his bed, she felt a prickly awareness of his physical presence close to her. She couldn’t tell if he was being moody or simply still half-asleep.  
“I’d better go after this,” she said.  
“Where?”  
“Back to Lawrie‘s. We‘re going home today.”  
 “Don’t go yet. You’ll only end up having to help with all the clearing up after the party.”  
“I wouldn’t!” she said, indignantly.  
“Not even when you get fed up waiting for her?”  
She had to reluctantly admit to herself that that could happen, especially if Lawrie was on a real go-slow.  
“Wait till I wake up a bit, and we can go and get some breakfast,” he suggested.  
“Oh. I don’t have any money.” Everything was in her bag, still in Lawrie’s bedroom.  
“I can run to two breakfasts,” he said, sounding slightly cross. “I’ll take you to where we can get the best breakfast in London.”  
“Where’s that?”  
“End of the road. You’ll see.”

 

He wasn’t wrong. And she did feel much better after eating a plateful piled with two of everything and extra toast on the side.  
Afterwards, Philip offered to drive her wherever she needed to go. Having come to the conclusion that she needed to go to Hampstead and actually _talk_ to Patrick, she said that she would go on the bus.  
“Bus fare?” he said.  
“ _Oh_.” She invariably followed her father’s edict that no-one should leave the house without their bus-fare home in their pocket, but last night she hadn’t known that she _was_ leaving.  
Philip said, teasing, “So you have to borrow the bus fare or let me drive you?”  
“I could walk!”  
“Well, you’re not going to. Not when I’ve got the car, and nothing else to do.”  
She wasn’t sorry, because it would have been miles to walk; but she made him let her out at the end of the road. She needed to walk the last bit of the way to work out what she was going to say.

Philip took Jan’s car back, and found her still in dressing gown, drinking coffee.  
“Want some breakfast?” she asked.  
“Call it lunch, and I’ll think about it,” he said. “Some of us have been up for _hours_.”  
She looked disbelieving. “So how was the party?”  
“I never actually got that far,” he said. He seemed rather pleased about something; assuming it was probably better not to ask, and as he didn’t tell her any more, she was left feeling faintly relieved that Miranda was almost certainly wrong.


	15. Unshriven.

To Nicola’s slight surprise, Anthony Merrick opened the door. She’d thought they had some sort of housekeeper, but perhaps being a Saturday, it was their day off.  
“Nicola!” Anthony greeted her, genial and seemingly pleased to see her. “I wasn’t expecting to see you till we got home! Are you in need of a lift down with us?”  
Only yesterday she would have said yes like a shot; instead she excused herself by explaining that she was meeting Lawrie later. “Actually, I was wondering if Patrick was in?” she enquired.  
“He’s in. Whether he’s awake and functioning is quite a different question. I’ll give him a shout for you. He came in rather late last night, I gather, although perhaps you know about that too?”  
She smiled weakly. He led her through the familiar old house, where childhood memories jarred oddly with the Merricks’ furnishings. He went ahead of her up the stairs, and banged cheerfully at the door of what had once been the boys’ room. “Are you decent, Pat? Nicola’s here.”  
Patrick appeared, quite awake, dressed quite neatly, only mildly surprised to see her.  
She followed him into his room. The last time she had been in there it had been full of Peter and Giles’ old Airfix kits and the smell of football boots. Now it was almost monastic in its bareness, made more so by the crucifix on the chest and a picture of a sad, long-faced woman with a halo and an unlikely baby - Mary, she supposed.  
“ I didn’t think I’d see you till tomorrow,” Patrick said, smoothing over the bed covers so she could sit. She walked over to the window, and stayed standing. “You weren’t around when I left last night?”  
“Well,you were busy doing something with Paul when I was leaving,” she said, and was surprised at how calmly her voice came out.  
An almost comic array of fear, realisation and dismay crossed his face. “ _Oh._ ”  
She met his startled expression steadily, until, visibly, he recovered himself, and said “Then why are you here? Aren’t you disgusted?”  
Startled by his choice of words, she said, “Disgusted? No!”  
He was watching her warily now. He said, “I would be. How did you know anyway?”  
“You were in Lawrie’s bedroom!”  
“Were we? I - I didn’t realise. Did you -?”  
“I nearly walked in on you. But it’s not _that_ that matters. It was a - a surprising way to find out, that’s all.”  
“I’m sorry,” he said, wretchedly. He sank down and sat on the floor with his back against the chest. She perched on the only chair. In the past they would have happily sat side-by-side on the bed.  
“Are you in lo - I mean - are you serious about Paul?” she asked.  
“In _love_? Most of the time I don’t even think I like him,” he said, suddenly bitter. “He can be a right devious little bastard.”  
“Then why - ?” asked Nicola, honestly shaken.  
“Oh come on! Don’t tell me everyone you know is waiting for Mr Right to come along before they _do_ anything!”  
“No, of course not. But …” Actually most of Nicola’s closest circle of friends didn’t go in much for casual sex. But at least those who did generally seemed to quite like the person they were hopping into bed with. “I don’t see the point if you don’t even like them.”  
“So how do you think it could work for me anyway?” said Patrick, with barely polite scorn. “Do you honestly think I could find a nice boy and settle down - and be that queer Mr Merrick and his little “friend” at Marriot Chase?”  
And there it was, her opportunity, like a yawning pit waiting for her to gallop headlong at it.  
“Is that what _I_ was going to be for?” she asked. Everything could still be alright - he could be puzzled, not understand her question, look blank. He didn’t.  
“I suppose so,” he said sadly.  
Even though she been expecting it, it was still like a thump in the solar plexus.  
“How could you?”  
He shrugged apologetically. Eventually he said, “I thought - well - I _like_ you - more than anyone else I know, actually. And if you liked me enough to - well, it might have worked. Mightn’t it?”  
“And would I have known - about the other thing?”  
“I rather hoped I could forget about it, if I was at Mariot Chase, away from - away from temptation. That’s why I wish Dad would just let me go home now and run the place.”  
“Oh, I bet you could have had a stable boy tucked away somewhere,” she said, with a flash of unusual nastiness that came from the hurting place inside.  
He flushed. “I suppose I deserved that.”  
“Why would you want that sort of pretend life anyway?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t you want to be with someone - properly?”  
“Oh Nick, how could I possibly?”  
“I don’t see why not. Other people do. I know you have to be private about it, and you can‘t tell some people …..”  
“I’m not just worried about what _people_ think!” he said crossly.  
“Then what?” She gazed at his fierce yellow hawk eyes. He indicated roughly upwards, and she caught sight of the crucifix. “You mean - the _Church_?”  
He dropped his head. It was then that she started to feel sorry for him.  
“Is it so very bad?” she asked.  
“Well, a little light murder might just be worse. But apart from that..”  
“Oh, Patrick, no. You don’t believe that, do you?”  
“Believe what? That I’m going to burn forever in hell? Not literally I suppose.”  
“What is it then?”  
“The eternal absence of God, is how people think of it these days. But then they’ve changed all sorts of things to suit themselves,” he said, with something of his old righteous contempt. Nicola thought it a rather chilling phrase - even if you didn’t believe. She slid down from the hard-backed chair and sat cross-legged beside him on the floor.  
“I thought you could go to confession and then everything would be forgiven?”  
“I can’t. Not when I know I want to do it again. And will sooner or later. Deep down I know I’m not really repentant at all.” He looked miserable.  
“But Patrick, it’s just rules. Made up by people.”  
“It’s _not._ You don’t understand.”  
“Yes, I do. You’re always moaning about how the current lot have changed things.”  
“Yes, but that’s all wrong! They’re not supposed to!”  
“So how do you know the first lot who made the first lot of rules weren’t all just as wrong? I bet your Jesus never said anything about it. _Did_ he?” She caught an answering spark in his eyes and thought she was onto something.  
“Do you think I haven’t thought all this?” he said, his voice catching oddly. “Everything you say and more. I tell myself that it’s alright and I can do whatever I want. It’s like I’m - like a hawk on a long creance - and I start flying faster and faster thinking I can get away, and then - wham - I get caught by the line and come crashing down. You can’t just pick the nice bits you want to believe and say all the inconvenient bits are rubbish. It’s all of it or nothing or there’s just no point. I might as well abandon the whole thing.”  
“Lots of people do.” She stared at his stubborn, frightened face and wondered what would actually be left of him if he did reject Catholicism.  
Footsteps on the landing sounded, someone tapped on the door, and Mr Merrick’s voice sounded. “Are you staying for lunch, Nicola? Only you’re very welcome.”  
She scrambled up, and pulled the door open a crack. “Thanks but no, I can’t. Lawrie will probably be wondering where I am by now. I should be getting going.”  
“Oh well, not to worry. I expect we’ll see you over Christmas. I hope you’re at home long enough to come to our party this year.”  
She walked downstairs with Mr Merrick, saying that she didn’t know yet. Patrick, she realised, had come out too and was silently following them. Mr Merrick tactfully disappeared towards the kitchen as they reached the front door.  
“Nicola,” Patrick said, low-voiced. “I didn’t mean to be - such a potential heel. Do we - do we have to stop being friends?”  
If only he hadn’t been such an almighty dick about this, they could have talked properly about it, probably years ago, she thought. It seemed likely that he was going to make himself far more unhappy about it than anyone else.  
With an effort she made her voice sound normally friendly. “No - but I think you’ve been a colossal idiot about the whole thing. I - I expect I’ll see you at home, but -if not- well, happy Christmas and all that.”  
The door closed behind her as she strode back down the path, gazing at the black and white chequered tiles. But the image in her head was of Jael caught in the tree all those years ago, ready to lash out at anyone who tried to help, furiously flailing but getting further and further entangled by her own jesses the more she struggled to get free.

 

“I’ve been waiting _ages_!“ complained Lawrie. “And where on earth did you get to last night?”  
“I didn’t think it was that much of a hurry. Haven’t you still got to clear up a bit?”  
“I’ve done my share!”  
“Really?” said Nicola, sceptically. It didn’t look like much tidying up had gone on judging by the ground floor of the house which was still in disarray. Still, if Lawrie’s housemates thought she’d bunked off without doing her fair share, that wasn’t going to be Nicola’s problem. “I just need my bag,” she said, heading past Lawrie up the stairs, navigating past a trail of empty bottles and glasses. Discarded clothes too, she noticed uneasily, and a pervasive smell of stale alcohol, and worse.  
“You still haven’t said where you were,” said Lawrie grumpily as they came out into the contrastingly pleasant fresh air of the street. “I could have been awfully worried when you weren‘t there.”  
“Bet you weren’t,” replied Nicola. “I stayed at Philip’s, if you must know.”  
“Did you!” said Lawrie, making a suggestively expressive face.  
“Oh, not like that, you fool!” said Nicola. “He was on the sofa and he very nicely gave me the bed.”  
“I bet you found the springs were worn out, eh?”  
“Oh, don’t be stupid!” Nicola snapped back.  
“And you probably fell asleep counting the notches?”  
“Lawrie, will you _shut up_!”  
“Alright! What’s got into you?“ complained Lawrie, acting injured. “I hope you’re not going to be cross like this all over Christmas!”


	16. That Old Cliche.

One morning, early in January, Philip was disturbed by a knock on his door. Trying to jot down a fragment of a melody before it went out of his head, and hoping Dai might stir himself to go to the door first, he ignored it. But as Dai didn’t, and whoever it was knocked again, more insistently, eventually he sighed and went.  
Eye-sight and understanding were briefly at war. After a moment he twigged and said crossly, “You’re making my head hurt. Lawrie, why are you trying to look like Nicola?”  
Lawrie, for it was indeed she, deflated. “How could you tell?” she asked, disappointed.  
Philip looked at her critically. He had never seen Lawrie without make-up, and her hair was newly cut short, just as Nick’s had been before Christmas. Nor had he ever seen her in old jeans and jumper; and he could have sworn that the battered denim jacket actually belonged to Nicola. He had only ever seen Lawrie dressed up, usually in something outlandish or experimental, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  
“Is the hair not quite right?” asked Lawrie, patting at it fussily.  
“I do have twin brothers. I know all the tricks,” he answered, although that wasn’t entirely the truth. It seemed to him, thinking in musical terms as he generally did, that Nicola was simply the note he came in on; and Lawrie was like the same note flat. Or sharp, he couldn’t decide. But wrong, either way.  
“Can I come in?” demanded Lawrie, sliding past him in the doorway.  
“It looks like you already are,” he said, following her resignedly up the stairs. “This way!” he added firmly, steering her into the main room as she showed signs of wanting to explore further. “You go blundering into Dai’s bedroom and it’s like disturbing a hibernating bear. Now tell me. What were you going to _do_ if I hadn’t known the difference?”  
Lawrie met his gaze and brazened it out, saying experimentally, “Anything you liked?”  
“ _Were_ you now?” he said silkily and stared at her until she had the grace to look embarrassed. “What would your little friend Michael have thought of that?”  
“It was his idea,” she admitted sulkily. “We had a bet!”  
Philip laughed. “Well, don’t you two deserve each other? What _was_ the bet exactly?”  
“Just to pass for Nick - that’s all!”  
“And does she happen to know what you’re up to? You’re wearing her coat?”  
“She left it at mine before Christmas.” Lawrie suddenly looked alarmed. “You’re not going to tell her, are you?”  
“Oh _yes_. I’m sure it’ll be a very amusing anecdote to tell her. I’m sure she’ll see the funny side. Eventually.”  
“You will, won’t you,” said Lawrie sulkily.  
Something struck Philip. “You didn’t cut your hair especially to do this, did you?”  
“No. I had it cut because it was annoying me, then Mike said it made me look more like Nicola. That’s what gave us the idea.”  
Sounds of a hibernating bear waking up had been going on, and now Dai, hearing voices, poked his head into the room. “Oh. Nicola. Hi,” he said sleepily, and retreated to the kitchen.  
Lawrie beamed, confidence restored. “What a lot of guitars,” she said, more cheerfully. “Why do you have so many? Surely you can only play one at a time?”” She bent over to examine them, with her hands exaggeratedly clasped behind her back.  
“It’s alright,” said Philip. “They won’t break.”  
“That one has,” pointed out Lawrie, looking at the one in the corner with a broken neck. “Did you smash it up on stage?”  
“No, I did _not_!” he said, aware that there was something hypocritical about his indignation, because it was true that he had damaged the guitar himself. But at least it hadn’t been for some stupid on-stage stunt.  
“So what happened?” she asked, not letting it go.  
“I don’t entirely remember, as it happens,” he admitted.  
“Can I have a go on one?”  
“No, you can’t!”  
As he said this, Dai came back into the room. “It’s not Nicola, is it?” he asked.  
“No. It’s the Evil Twin.”  
Lawrie poked her tongue out at Philip. “How could you tell?” she asked Dai.  
“Asking stupid questions,” he told her.  
“Oh.”  
“Never mind,” said Philip kindly. “Have one of these.” From a pile on the shelf he took a ticket and handed it to her. She inspected it. It was for a band playing at the Hammersmith Palais and included a backstage pass.  
“Why do I want to go and see these?” she asked.  
“You don’t. You want to see the support act.”  
“Oh! You? That’s really good. They’re quite famous, aren’t they?”  
“Unjustly so, but yes, indeed they are.”  
“Can I have another one?” she asked.  
When he shook his head, she complained, “I can’t go on my own!”  
“Well, there’s Miranda or Jan or Nicola or Robyn. You can ask whichever of them you haven’t annoyed lately to hold your hand for you.”  
Dai rolled his eyes and left them to it. To get her out of the flat, Philip said, “Come on. I’ll take you for a coffee if you like?”  
He took her to the café at the end of the road where he’d taken Nicola the time before. The elderly Italian owner who brought their coffees to the table gave Lawrie a friendly, recognising nod. “There,” said Philip. “He thinks you’re Nicola. You can tell your horrible boyfriend you won your bet.”

 

XXXX

 

“You had no idea, did you?” said Robyn, as they were jostled together along the corridor from auditorium to backstage area.  
“What do you mean?” asked Nicola,  
“Philip. He’s not just your tame accompanist.”  
“As if I didn’t know _that!_ ” said Nicola crossly. But to be fair, Robyn had a point. She was used to Philip as friend, coach and - well, yes - an accompanist, playing acoustic guitar while she sang. But on stage with Ffurnais, he had been both electrified and electrifying. They all had. She didn’t know if they had got much better in the last year or if she had got better at appreciating them. Certainly she was noticing things she wouldn’t have noticed before, such as the almost invisible signals that passed between the four of them on stage. And the structure of the music - how well-written the songs were, and how brilliantly voice and instruments worked together.  
When they reached the backstage dressing rooms they found the band bouncing around, rather like thoroughbred horses after a race, with glittering eyes, drenched in sweat, flying high on adrenalin. Whisky was being passed round as if it was water.  
There were a lot of people packed into a small space, and it took a while to sort everyone out. Philip seized Nicola and introduced her properly to Owain the bass player and Martin the drummer.  
Nicola did her duty by the whisky bottle when it came her way, and the evening took on an unreal and slightly blurry quality. People seemed to be behaving quite oddly in minor ways. Lawrie had been rather wary when they had met up before the concert, although that seemed to have worn off. Robyn was being decidedly prickly until she found out that the three striking girls mobbing Dai were actually his sisters. She had been offered floor space along with Nicola in Lawrie’s house for that night, but had said evasively that she probably wouldn’t need it. And twice when Nicola had been talking with Philip, she had caught _Jan_ giving her a long, speculative and not particularly friendly look.  
Nobody bothered to go back to the auditorium for the main act. They could hear from where they were, and if they wanted to could see the side of the stage from the backstage area. Philip and Nicola watched a bit from the side.  
That close to the stage, he had to yell in her ear to say anything. “They’re not very good, are they? We play so much better.”  
Nicola nodded, accepting the comment for what it was. It wasn’t arrogant, merely a professional assessment without false modesty. It was the same way Lawrie could talk about her own acting performances - when she wasn’t _trying_ to show off.  
They retreated to where they could hear themselves talk. “Their records are massively over produced to make them sound good,” he complained. “Still, we’ve got six weeks touring with them. You might want to find someone else you can sing with, if you don‘t want to wait.”  
“Oh no! Unless _you_ don’t want to any more?”  
He flashed her his most mocking smile. “Don’t worry. I’m not letting all this fame go to my head just yet.”

Someone had organised a party to go on to, above a nightclub. Jan and Miranda disappeared off together between the concert and the club, leaving Nicola and Lawrie reliant on each other’s company in a way they hadn‘t been for a long time. They were both aware of being somewhat out of their depth, the only difference being that Nicola was happy to freely admit it, whereas Lawrie tried to act as if she was entirely used to being at this sort of party, where people seemed more glamorous and sophisticated and far more expensively drunk and foolish than either RADA or Oxford students on cheap beer ever got. Fairly well drunk herself, Nicola was slow to realise that actually some of them were fuelled by more than just alcohol.  
She found herself watching a pair of impossibly tall and exquisite girls cross the room, elegantly flinging their arms round everyone they recognised, including Philip, around whom each wrapped themselves in turn with exaggerated kisses. She was surreally reminded of a nature programme she had seen once, in which crowned cranes leapt gracefully round each other in a long-legged courtship dance.  
“Have you had enough yet?” she asked Lawrie soon after, starting to find it all a bit much, and was relieved when Lawrie agreed that they needn’t stay any longer.  
They passed Philip on their way out. He stuck his hand out to stop Nicola.  
“I must be considerably pissed,” he said. “I could swear I’m seeing two of you.”  
“We’ve heard _that_ one before,” said Lawrie.  
“Bet you’ve heard them _all_ ,” he said, tilting an eyebrow at Lawrie. “Bet people ask all the time if you ever pretend to _be_ each other?”  
“We were on our way out actually. Come _on_ , Nick,” Lawrie replied.  
“Oh. Do you have to go already?” Philip asked, looking only at Nicola.  
“Yes, we do really. I’m on the first train back in the morning,” she explained. She had a lecture she was hoping to be back for.  
“Oh. Well, so long then.” He looked as though he might have said more, but Lawrie linked an arm through hers and towed her away. That was a bizarre conversation, thought Nicola, but putting it down to drink, soon gave up wondering about it.

 

Nicola had a sleeping bag on Lawrie’s bedroom floor. She lay back, with her arms crossed behind her head, feeling quite awake after the walk home, which had half-way sobered her up. She had thought of asking to sleep on the sofa downstairs, but had decided that that would be pure funk, and besides, Lawrie would want her to _explain._  
Instead they discussed the party.  
“Did you see those tall girls come in?” Nicola asked Lawrie. “They looked like models or something?”  
“I think they might be,” said Lawrie. “I’ve seen them before.”  
“Isn’t it odd, the way they go round hugging and kissing people like that?”  
“Why? Jealous?”  
“No, of course not.” Which was entirely true, because even if she’d had a reason to feel jealous, clearly those artless, stylish embraces meant nothing and were all for show.  
“Theatre people are like that too,” said Lawrie. “It’s all mwah, mwah, darling, darling, and none of it means anything.”  
“Most peculiar,” said Nicola, to whom it seemed part of an alien world.  
“I tell you what I think is unfair,” said Lawrie unexpectedly. “People like that can fawn all over each other in public when it means nothing. But Miranda and Jan can’t even hold hands.”  
Nicola sat up and looked at her.  
“Don’t you think it’s terribly sad?” continued Lawrie.  
“I didn’t realise you knew,” said Nicola.  
“Really, just _how_ stupid do you think I am?” answered Lawrie.  
Nicola resisted the obvious retort, but only just.  
“I haven’t said anything,” added Lawrie.  
Nicola thought she must still be drunker than she’d realised because it was suddenly quite easy to say, “And did you know about Patrick?”  
“Patrick and who?” asked Lawrie, cautiously, as if scenting a trap for heffalumps.  
“Patrick and Paul.”  
“Oh. No,” said Lawrie, sounding distinctly relieved. “I didn’t actually, although now you’ve said it, I suppose it was obvious.”  
“Who did you think I was going to say?”  
“No-one definite.. ..Just there were some visitors from France once, when I was staying with the Merricks. It was something about the way he looked, you know?”  
“Not something _I_ knew! Might you have mentioned it?”  
“Oh, what could I have said, honestly, Nick? He looked all moony-eyed at a boy, maybe he’s not the marrying kind? You‘d have just thought I was talking nonsense again - as usual.” There was some justice in that, thought Nicola. After a moment, Lawrie asked, “Is that why you were so grumpy at Christmas?”  
“I wasn’t!” It was true that she’d used the excuse of having to catch up with loads of reading to stay by the log fire and not go to the Boxing Day meet. (But that hadn’t been anything to do with not wanting to meet Patrick.) And when Peter or Lawrie suggested all of them going to the pub and meeting up with Patrick, she had been the one to suggest that Wendy and various other Young Farmer type friends come along. And she’d made a special effort to get to know Wendy, who was clearly not going to be going away any time soon, if Peter had anything to do with it. (She did actually improve on closer acquaintance, even if Lawrie refused to try and like her.) So all in all, she considered that she’d been _perfectly_ sociable over Christmas.  
She’d been silent so long that Lawrie had given up and rolled over to sleep. Nicola lay awake a while longer thinking muddled thoughts. It had been in this very room that she’d seen the two of them. But that image was juxtaposed with pictures from the party and all those beautiful, glamorous people circling round each other like dancing cranes.


	17. Empty Nest.

Geoff and Pam were reliving their early married life in a tiny one-bed-roomed flat, located conveniently for the Admiralty, where they were refreshingly untroubled by the lives of their grown-up children. The only one they saw regularly was Daughter No 3, who dutifully met her mother for coffee once a fortnight. On one of these visits she gently brought to their attention the fact that Daughter No 5 was going to be singing live in a near-by location and possibly they might like to go.  
It was an eye - or possibly ear - opener for Geoff.  
“Why didn’t I _know_ Nicola could sing like that,” he grumbled afterwards.  
“Oh, darling, I must have told you. She sang the solos in the Christmas play that time.”  
“How come I never came to anything she sang in? Was I always away?”  
“No, you came to those plays of Lawrie’s,” said Pam, musing. “I don’t think Nicola sang in anything special at school, actually. Not things parents went to anyway.”  
“Didn’t those teachers make the oddest choices about who got to do what?” asked Geoff, to whom the girls’ school had always been rather a mystery.  
“Well, they don’t like individual pupils to get above themselves, I suppose.”  
“They let Lawrie star in several plays,” remarked Geoff.  
“Well, once they’d claimed she got the Prosser because of her acting ability I suppose they had to show her off to justify it. Or other parents might have got a bit funny,” said Pam, adding, “But Nick never seemed that keen to show what she could do when it came to singing. I didn’t think she really enjoyed performing.”  
“Well, full marks to this young chap then for setting her going. She’s obviously enjoying it now,” said Geoff, approvingly. He had been secretly stunned at how proud he’d felt watching his daughter sing. Her voice had pulled at feelings he thought he’d forgotten a long time ago.  
“What did you make of him?” asked Pam.  
“Well, he could do with a decent haircut,” he said, as was expected, recalling his impressions of a long, lean boy with eyes the colour of polished sea glass. He had an old-fashioned reliance on a firm hand-shake and the ability to hold his gaze (especially when he was being paternal and particularly steely-eyed) when judging character, and Philip had passed both those tests. But beyond that, he didn’t - couldn’t - know.  
“But do you think he’s - well - _after_ Nick?” Pam asked, anxiously.  
“Probably,” he said, and sighed inwardly. So much of his daughters' lives seemed to have passed without him knowing anything at all about them. And now it was too late and they had slipped well away beyond his control or influence.  
“Still, at least one can’t fault the boy’s judgement,” he said, more cheerfully. “It’s Lawrie’s and Ginty’s young men I feel sorry for.”  
“Oh no. How can you say that? Tom’s lovely!” exclaimed Pam.  
Geoff harrumphed inwardly. He had remarked after meeting Tom that he was probably too good for Ginty but not bright enough to know it, and Pam had been rather upset. Half the reason he found Ginty so exasperating was because his wife had made such a favourite of her, although in rare moments of extreme honesty he wondered it was the other way round - Pam had started to favour Ginty as a motherly defence against his criticism.  
“And that boy Lawrie introduced us to seemed very polite and charming,” added Pam.  
“Hmm. You don’t think that given that he’s a drama student, he wasn’t just acting the role of ‘boy you can take home to meet the parents’ a little _too_ well?” asked Geoff, sceptically.  
“Well, maybe,” admitted Pam. “But at least he could dress himself respectably.”  
“Remember all the things _your_ Mother didn’t like about me?” Geoff teased her.  
“Yes,” she said fondly. “And no doubt our lot will take as little notice of what _we_ think as we ever did of _her!_ ”


	18. An Evening That Doesn't Quite Go To Plan.

In early May Nicola and Philip met to perform for the last time before the summer break. This was because Ffurnais had been given the chance to go on a European tour, supporting another band. Nicola supposed she didn’t really mind in one respect - she did have exams to concentrate on - but it also felt as if they hadn’t done all that much in the previous few months - just as she was starting to get properly into it. She had almost entirely lost any nerves about performing. She was starting to feel confident in her own judgement as to how to interpret new songs. Most of all, and she was surprised when she first realised this, she was finding it fun.  
They sat in Joy’s upper room, supposedly warming up, but both reluctant to get started; talking about their plans for the summer instead. Nicola was impressed when Philip listed the cities they’d be touring through.  
“We won’t _see_ that much,” he told her. “It’s on the bus for hours, venue, cheap hotel, back on the bus.”  
“It’s still exciting,” said Nicola, temporarily envious, imagining weeks spent travelling round Europe.  
“And where are you going?” asked Philip, teasing, because he already knew.  
Nicola grinned. “It’s not definite, yet.” If her father could spare the time, they were planning to sail the Tommy Noddy to Iceland.  
“Now that is somewhere I’d like to go,” said Philip. “Send me a postcard. Or take lots of photos.”  
“I can do both,” she said.  
“And where would you like one from?” he asked.  
Nicola thought about it. “Copenhagen, maybe.”  
“The little mermaid?” he asked.  
Nicola had been thinking more of Nelson and battles, but the mermaid would do too. “I never used to understand that story when I was little. I never saw why she would want to chase after that stupid prince when she could live in the sea forever.”  
He smiled. “And now?”  
“Now?”  
“You made it sound like you understood it now?”  
“I read it to Fob, my sort-of niece when she had chicken pox, and I‘d forgotten how sad it was.” She stopped, and glanced quickly at him before saying, hesitantly, “It reminded me a bit of Miranda then.”  
As she had hoped, she didn’t need to explain. He looked thoughtful, before saying, rather surprisingly, “Yes, sooner or later, Miranda will have to start standing up for herself rather more.”  
It was disconcerting to hear her own thoughts put into words like that. “She does with everyone else,” she said. ”Robyn calls her my ‘scary’ friend.”  
“Well, that’s a case of it takes one to know one!” he said. “Right, do you think it’s time we did some work?”  
She supposed that it was.

It was the sort of suddenly hot May day that reminds everyone that summer exists and isn’t just a forlorn memory. The pub windows and doors stood open to the warm evening air, so people passing in the street heard the music and applause and wandered in to listen. It was one of the best nights they’d ever done, thought Nicola, and felt wistfully sad that they couldn’t do it again till September.  
There was a good buzz afterwards, as people hung around with much laughter and talk. Eventually Nicola looked round for Robyn, with whom she usually walked home, and realised that she was nowhere to be seen. Dai, who had been there earlier, had also disappeared.  
“Don‘t worry about them,” said Philip. “I’ll walk you home.”  
“Really, there’s no need,” she said. “It’s quite safe. We walk round here at night all the time.”  
“I’m sure it is and I’m sure you do. But as I’m here, and I want to…” he said pointedly.  
“As long as it doesn’t make you miss the last train back,” she said, reluctantly. He looked oddly frustrated; check-mated even, though it wasn’t as if they’d even been arguing.  
The streets were still full. People had no reason to hurry home when the night was so balmy. Swallows still hawked at midges through the spreading glow of the street lamps, while hunting bats skimmed across the river. Students in noisy groups gathered wherever there was a patch of river bank to sit on. Couples leant over the bridge parapets, hand in hand, or hid in the shadowed recesses of archways to kiss.  
But it was a long slog to her house, and as they left the town centre behind the streets became darker and quieter.  
“Nowhere’s completely safe,” Philip remarked. “Someone tried to steal my guitar off me once, in what we thought was a quiet, nothing sort of place.”  
“Really? What happened?”  
“I mean, my guitar! If he’d asked for my wallet I’d have given it to him! Not that there’d have been anything in it.”  
“When was this?”  
“Years ago. When we first came down to London and we were slogging round playing every pub that would have us, wherever we could get to. We were a bit rubbish back then, and it hadn’t gone that well. The drummer was useless but he had a van so we put up with him, until that night I said a few things I probably shouldn’t have. I mean, how hard is it to hit things in time?”  
“It doesn’t look that easy to me,” Nicola objected.  
“It’s easy to do it badly. Martin is a different thing entirely. Anyway, that’s beside the point. What happened is I walked out of this dump of a pub, by myself, and halfway down the road, this bloke lurched out of the shadows and said to give him the guitar. He was kind of shaking and desperate and grabbing the strap. I told him to piss off and sort of pushed him away. That’s when I realised it wasn’t his hand he was reaching with, it was a knife and he’d cut half my sleeve off.”  
He caught her expression in the street lights and threw her a wide smile, warming up to his story. “It was a really good leather jacket too. I’m still annoyed that got wrecked.”  
“Then what?” asked Nicola.  
“Adrian appeared, and came running down the street like Batman, is what happened, and the other guy cleared off. I expect he was just a junkie, desperate for anything he could get. But there we were, no idea where we were, and quite a lot of blood pouring everywhere by then. I was leaving a trail behind us down the street. The pub had locked its door and ignored us banging on it. We passed a cab waiting and the driver took one look at me and drove off. Eventually we got to a phone box and Ade called an ambulance. I think I’d lost quite a lot of blood by then, because I had to sit down quite suddenly, and I don’t really remember very much till I was in the hospital all stitched up.” He paused, and glanced at Nicola cautiously, then said ,in a ’you can laugh if you want’ sort of way , “The worst thing was in the early hours of the morning when the pain killers wore off and I was a bit delirious, thinking my hand wasn’t going to work properly any more.”  
“Oh,” she said, in instant understanding.  
“Works fine now,” he said and as they paused at a road crossing ,he reached out and caught lightly at her hand.  
“I did wonder how you got that scar, actually,” she said, not pulling her hand away.  
“And you didn’t ask? How very restrained. You are allowed to be nosy sometimes.”  
“Well I never know.” She recalled an earlier story, and said, “Adrian does seem to have come charging to your rescue quite a lot.”  
“Didn’t he just?” he said, half-smiling. “The stupidest thing about it was that I could have just given that piss-head the guitar. I ended up smashing it after Adrian died anyway.”  
“How?” she asked eventually, after an uncomfortable moment.  
“I don’t really know. I wasn’t at my most sober for a while.” He let go of her hand, and watching her face, said mockingly, “I tell you my _best_ stories, don’t I?”  
She was dismayed to see something glinting in the corner of his eyes, before he half-turned and walked on quicker.  
“Phil?”  
“What you said.”  
“What did I say? I’m sorry.”  
“No - not you saying it. About Adrian, always coming to my rescue. Only I never came to his.”  
“I thought you said before it was diabetes?”  
“It was.” He slowed down again, thinking before he spoke. “He had it all under control. He’d been having to jab himself all his life. He didn’t make a fuss about it. When other bands had Jack Daniels lined up in the dressing room we had emergency jelly babies. He never drank or anything. I don’t really know why ……... He’d gone onto this party after a gig, and I hadn’t.” He shot her a slightly sheepish look, then carried on, “I’d hooked up with this girl and gone home with her. Anyway he must have collapsed at this place, and everyone assumed he was just drunk or out of it, and left him to sleep it off. And by the time someone bothered to look at him, it was too late. They got him to hospital but he never came round.”  
He slid the back of his hand across his cheek bone, which Nicola could see glistened wetly.  
“I’d have _known_. If _I’d_ been there I’d have known to _do_ something..”  
Nicola was quietly horrified. It had been disturbing during her teenage years to realise that even adults sometimes cried, but now on the verge of turning twenty, she had never seen a man crying.  
“Phil,” she said uncertainly, and reached out to catch his arm. But he jerked away.  
“See. I still shouldn’t talk about this,” he said. After a long minute, he said, “Afterwards, it bugged me for ages. A stupid thing. I couldn’t think what the girl’s name was. That I was with. I kept trying to remember, as if it would make any difference.”  
“Maybe you never knew it,” said Nicola practically, and without thinking.  
He gave her a startled look. “Perhaps I didn’t,” he said, his voice suddenly remote and shut off.  
They walked on in silence. She felt frozen and powerless. There ought to be something _better_ she could say, but she felt both mind and voice dried up uselessly. It was with some relief that they turned into the road that led to her house, and she could say, “It’s only along here.”  
“You know,” he said, abruptly changing the subject himself. “You’re getting far too good for what we’re doing.”  
“What?” she asked, not having followed whatever trail of thought he was on at all.  
“These odd nights here and there. You should be doing much more.”  
Had he forgotten she was at _Oxford_? “I am trying to get a degree here,” she pointed out.  
“I know that! But afterwards? When you finish?”  
“Well, I’ll be away sailing for a year. And there won’t be any point after that - I’ll have done it.”  
He looked utterly thrown.  
“That _is_ what I’m saving up for,” she reminded him.  
“What about after that?” he asked.  
“Then I’ll have to find a job”  
“A ‘proper’ job?” he asked.  
“Of course,” she answered, surprised. She stopped at a gate which opened into a small, square yard. That it was a student house was marked by the usual battle going on between the weeds and the bulging bin bags. “This is it.”  
“Oh. Right.” There was a fractionally awkward pause, before he said easily, “Night then. Happy sailing and all that,” and he swung away and was gone.  
She let herself slowly into the house, wishing she’d thought to ask him in. He’d almost certainly have missed the last train.  
Later on, kicking the sheets, her mind kept sleeplessly running on all the things she could have - should have - said or done differently. She had, in fact, been quite useless and no wonder he’d looked so - so bleak - before he’d walked away.


	19. A Visitor For Breakfast.

Nicola had decided to move back into rooms for her final year at Oxford. To her slight surprise, Robyn had decided to do the same. Perhaps she too had become fed up of rows about phone bills and washing-up and who had used the last of whose milk. So they were almost right back where they’d started, with rooms on the same corridor.  
“Wow. Don’t you look Nordic?” said Robyn, first day back. “Is that sailing? People spend good money to look like that,” she added, admiringly.  
A summer at sea had left Nicola with a deep golden tan, and hair lightened by sun and salt to an almost white blonde. Robyn meanwhile had returned rather smugly wearing an oversized Welsh rugby shirt. She had joined up with Ffurnais at a gig on their return to the UK in August and spent the rest of the summer travelling round on tour with them.  
There was no gentle easing back into work for either of them. Within a few days Nicola had a reading list as long as her arm.  
In general Nicola was a morning person, and liked to get up early and do several hours work first thing, so it was relatively rare for her to have to write her essays the night before a tutorial. But this early in the term, she was finding it hard to focus and was working unusually late one evening. The words on the paper before her seemed particularly dull and meaningless; her thoughts would much rather either skip back to memories of the summer’s sailing, or forward to seeing Philip again next week for a rehearsal session. So it was a relief when there was a knock on the door and Robyn poked her head in.  
“Look who I found wandering around outside looking lost,” she said. Nicola looked up, and was totally astonished.  
“Miranda!”  
Miranda, looking as unlike a student as it was possible to look, in a fitted dress and smart jacket, stood there looking uncertain. Nicola jumped up, and pulled her into the room.  
Robyn retreated, saying meaningfully, “If you want any help drinking whatever’s clinking in that bag, you know where I am.”  
Miranda was indeed carrying an off-licence bag. “I thought I should bring something,” she said. “Are you working? I can go away again if you’re busy?”  
“Don’t be a clot,” said Nicola, closing the door. “Where on earth have you come from?”  
“London. I don’t suppose there’s any trains back now. Can I stay the night?”  
“Of course you can. But why?”  
“Actually, can I open one of these first?” Miranda asked, pulling a bottle of whisky out of the bag.  
Nicola silently offered her a choice of chipped mugs or old picnic tumblers which were the only drinking utensils she owned. She was privately amused to see that Miranda had brought single malt - which at least meant they didn’t have to fetch any water - but was something no student could have afforded. It occurred to her that Miranda’s face looked very far from amused about anything.  
“You’d better tell me,” she said.  
Miranda poured them both a good inch first, then said, “I was on the verge of doing something quite stupid. Well, incredibly stupid, actually. Then once I’d decided not to, I was right by the station, and I didn’t know what else to do, and I thought, I could come and see you.”  
Nicola, not enlightened at all, waited for Miranda to say more. Miranda took a good gulp of her whisky first, then said, “We had a sort of row.”  
“With Jan?”  
“Who else!” Miranda’s voice shook. It occurred to Nicola that the train from London to Oxford took hours and Miranda must have been brooding all the way. “A proper row. Like being a Junior back at school and having a _prefect_ giving you a good telling off. Which was _just_ what it was like, actually,” she said, bitterly sarcastic. “I couldn’t possibly make a sensible decision about anything, apparently. I don’t even know what I’m missing!”  
“Which is..?”  
“Well, there’s the thing. I thought I’d go and get pulled and find out.”  
“Oh Miranda, no! How?”  
“Easy!” said Miranda, with a flash of angry pride. “Go to the right sort of place, sit at the bar with a cigarette waiting to be lit, looking bored - and _rich!_ ”  
Nicola listened with fascinated horror. “And did you?”  
“Get pulled? Oh yes! Even Lawrie would have been impressed with my acting. We’d just got to the point where he suggested we went on ‘somewhere else‘, and it was as if I suddenly looked at myself from the outside - and I thought, Oh fuck, what am I doing? And I said something about just powdering my nose, and kept walking right out of the bar and down the street. And then I got a bit panicky because I had the maddest idea that he might come chasing after me, so I went into the tube station and got on a train. And that’s when I thought I could come and see you.”  
“Good,” said Nicola, relieved. “First sensible thing you’ve said. But I think you need to go back to the beginning.”  
“Top-up first,” said Miranda. Nicola had barely touched her glass but she let Miranda pour a bit more in anyway, to keep her company.  
“We were talking about Norwich,” said Miranda. “Moving there I mean.”  
“Really? Why on earth?” said Nicola. “I should think you’d hate it!”  
Miranda eyed her over the whisky tumbler. “How do you _know?_ ” she asked, eventually.  
“I suppose I don’t,” admitted Nicola. “Just from things Philip says, it sounds like the most boring place to actually live.”  
“I rather got that impression myself, actually,” agreed Miranda. “Jan’s uncle wants her to go back and work with him when she’s finished articles. She could be made partner there.”  
Miranda frowned. Nicola sipped her drink, waiting.  
“So we were thinking. What if Jan lived there, and I went up Friday nights and came back Monday mornings. I mean, lots of people who work in London do that sort of thing. And it wouldn’t be that different to how it is now - only seeing each other a couple of nights a week. It’s not as if we’ve moved in together yet,” she said, an edge creeping into her voice. “But it’s not very satisfactory somehow. So I said, why didn’t _I_ just move there too?”  
“Really?“ asked Nicola again. “What about the gallery you want to have? Could you do that there?”  
“Not the way I want to. Selling pretty watercolours to holiday makers, maybe,” Miranda said with unconscious scorn. “But that’s not the point. I could do something - anything - else. I wouldn’t mind. It would be - be worth it.” She knocked back the last of her glass to hide the sudden tremble in her voice.  
Nicola was shocked. She privately thought it was insane for Miranda to be throwing up any of her own ambitions. But she could see that it wasn’t the moment to say that. Instead she said, “You haven’t got to the row bit yet.”  
“That was it, really. Her saying I couldn’t. Only - she was so - so patronising! As if - as if I couldn’t know my own mind because I still had a silly school girl crush and one day I’d grow out of it and wonder what I’d done!”  
She stopped abruptly, unable to go on, eyes blazing with hurt fury. Her hands tightened on the empty glass. Nicola gently took it away from her and splashed more whisky in. It occurred to her that the level of whisky in the bottle had gone down a long way and she had hardly drunk any of it herself, so she screwed the top on deliberately and put the bottle up on her chest of drawers.  
“Maybe we should make up a bed,” she suggested, tossing cushions off the chair onto the floor.  
Miranda watched her pulling spare blankets out of a drawer, then said accusingly, “You think she’s got a point, don’t you?”  
“Sometimes people that you’ve liked for a long time aren’t what you thought they were.”  
“Jan is!” said Miranda, instantly fierce.  
Nicola spread blankets and pillows on top of her sheepskin rug. “Patrick turned out to be gay.”  
“Oh!” said Miranda, anger switching to dismay. “I should have told you that!”  
“ _You_ should? When?”  
“After France last year. I had a suspicion, nothing definite. Are -are you mad at me?”  
“Not at all,” said Nicola with genuine nonchalance, realising now that it mattered not a jot. “Lawrie had a feeling too, and she didn’t say anything either. But it couldn‘t be _more_ ancient history now.”  
“Oh,” said Miranda; then, more to herself than Nicola, she muttered, “Still, it proves she’s not right about everything!”  
“Anyway,” said Nicola soothingly. “Jan’s not Patrick. And you’ve had nearly two years now getting to know each other properly.”  
“Exactly! But it’s like she’s finding reasons to push me away!”  
“Maybe she just needs to know that you’re sure you’re doing the right thing.” She threw a pair of pyjamas in Miranda’s lap. “It was because of her you didn’t want to go to university, wasn’t it?”  
“And I don’t regret that at all! Especially looking at that!” Miranda waved at the leaning tower of books on Nicola’s desk.  
“Well, you might have a point there,” admitted Nicola. “Right, you better have the bed.”  
“Oh no! I couldn’t possibly. It’s your room!”  
“I’m used to sleeping in odd places. I’ve been in the bunk in the boat all summer which is just as hard as the floor here, and a lot more narrow.”  
“I thought you had hammocks in boats?”  
“It’s not the Victory!” They both giggled foolishly for longer than the comment deserved.  
Miranda held up the pyjamas. “These look like the pyjamas we had in school.”  
“They _are_ the pyjamas we had in school. Those must be the last surviving pair. I don’t run to silk nightdresses. Come on, I’ll show you where the bathroom is.”

 

Nicola woke later than usual in the morning, and found Miranda staring at the ceiling, looking white and worn, as if she hadn’t slept at all.  
“If we hurry, we’ll just be in time for breakfast,” said Nicola. “Miranda?”  
“What? Oh, don’t worry. I don’t want anything.”  
“Nonsense,” said Nicola, channelling her best Rowan voice. “Food and coffee and you’ll feel much better.”  
“Coffee, maybe.”  
Nicola lent her jeans and jumper so that she didn’t look out of place in the student dining room. “Have you got fifty pence?”  
But Miranda just pushed her food around the plate. “I meant to get the first train back. It must have gone hours ago.”  
“I think you should go back to bed,” said Nicola, feeling more worried about this pale, defeated Miranda than she had last night when she was flaming with righteous anger. “There’s no point rushing now. You’ll have missed most of the morning by the time you get back anyway.”  
“Dad will already be wondering where I am,” said Miranda.  
“That’s alright. I’ll ring the Shop on the way to my tutorial and leave a message. Then you can get a train back this afternoon when you’ve had a bit of sleep,” said Nicola, sounding more confident than she felt. They returned to the room where Miranda silently curled herself into the bed and pulled the sheet over her head, a gesture Nicola had seen so often from Lawrie that she knew there was no use saying anything. She took her half-finished essay and let herself out quietly.  
When she came back later Miranda was fast asleep. Deciding not to disturb her, she left a note, and went to spend a couple of industrious hours in the library.

XXXXX

 

Jan rarely had a lunch break other than a sandwich at her desk, or sometimes a meeting with colleagues. But today, pleading a head ache and the need for fresh air (which wasn’t even a lie, having not slept the previous night) she slipped out and hurrying rather, did the brisk ten minute walk to the Shop.  
The bell chimed as she pushed open the door, and Mr West emerged from an inner room.  
“Good afternoon, Janice. Can I help you?” he asked, gently courteous as always. They had met briefly several times, usually when she had been meeting Miranda at the shop after work.  
“Is Miranda here?”  
“No, I’m afraid she’s not working today.”  
“Oh. Is she at home? She’s not ill, is she?”  
“No, no, she’s quite well. She’s away for the day, that’s all. Shall I give her a message?”  
Plainly, she couldn’t ask outright where Miranda was. “Just - just that I was here.”  
“Yes, of course,” he said politely, as he shepherded her to the door. Then rather more reassuringly, he added, “I’m sure she’ll be back soon. I’ll tell her you called.”  
Out on the street, walking back to the office, she wondered. Miranda never let her father worry about her whereabouts for even a second; so clearly he knew where she was.  
Jan sighed. There were so many people Miranda knew or saw or did things with on all those evenings they weren’t together. (‘You like your space, don’t you?’) There were antiques people she knew through work, people from the tennis club, the three musicians that she met to play chamber music with, people from school - Esther was one, and Pomona too quite often, even Lawrie on odd occasions. But none of them were obvious bolt-holes. … .... It was a good thing for her dignity, if nothing else, that Phil was out of town, or she’d have been ringing him asking for Nicola’s number.

If only she hadn’t said all those stupid things. If only she’d seen that this had been building up for some time, and not been blindsided into blurting her fears out in such a tactless way. If only she had realised in time that Miranda had been quite frighteningly furious, and not gone _on_ saying things that made everything worse.  
She relived the moment when Miranda had walked out, icily calm.  
“Where are you _going_?” she’d said, cross and proudly distant by then.  
“I’d better go and see what I’m missing,” Miranda said sweetly. Instead of just stopping her, she’d snapped, “Oh, don’t be so _stupid!_ ”  
Miranda had turned and laughed, a bright challenge in those vivid blue eyes, and asked “Why _not_?”  
Which was when she should have _told_ her why not - _why_ she didn’t want her to go, _why_ she really wanted to believe that someone could be prepared to throw everything up and move anywhere with her, _why_  it was hard for her to believe that she could be loved.  Instead of confessing that _she_ was afraid, she had let that fearless heart go.  
Jan took the longest route back to the office; through a triangle of dusty grass fenced by iron railings. She stared unseeingly at the office workers eating their lunches on the benches, surrounded by hopeful sparrows looking for crumbs. ‘You like your space’ Miranda had said when they had been talking about her coming up for week-ends. It seemed obvious to Jan now, that Miranda must have nerved herself to suggest that she should move there too. No wonder she’d been so upset when Jan had said that she couldn’t possibly be so sure she wanted to do that.  
It was true enough that she liked her space - or it had been once. She hated being smothered, having someone constantly demanding attention, as if her approval validated them. But then Miranda never did that. Miranda was just there, being clever and funny and beautiful and competent - wickedly competent at some things, she thought, aching. It hit her suddenly, that the idea of going anywhere, even for only half the week, without her, was completely and utterly unthinkable.

 

XXXXX

 

When Nicola returned from the library she found Miranda up, surprisingly impeccably dressed in the previous day’s clothes, and if not exactly cheerful, certainly resolute.  
“I’ve been planning what I’ve got to say,” she told Nicola. “Cards on the table time. I’m going to say what I want, and if that’s not what she wants, we’ll just have to leave it.”  
“Really?” said Nicola, impressed.  
“Yes. I suppose you could call it double or quits,” said Miranda.  
“Well, good luck. I’ll be wondering like anything - what happens, I mean.”  
“Call me at the Shop tomorrow lunch-time.”

 

Miranda arrived home later that evening. She found her father pottering in the kitchen, where he enjoyed fixing himself snacks when her mother was out.  
“Your friend Janice called in the shop earlier,” he told her.  
“Oh. Did - did she say anything?”  
“No. I fancy she was disappointed not to see you, though.” He looked at her with delicate concern, and she felt her familiar rush of affection for him.  
“She’s not just a friend.”  
“No. I didn’t think she was.”  
Miranda watched her father calmly spooning olives out of a jar. “ How long have you known?”  
“It has seemed apparent to me for some time. You needn’t worry; I know you have to be discreet. Not everyone will understand - at work or at home.”  
“You - _you_ don’t mind?”  
“I mind if it’s making you unhappy.”. His eyes, deep-set and habitually sad, rested on hers.  
“It’s not. Truly. This was a row, that’s all. Just a normal row.”  
“Ah,” he said gravely. “Well, as you know, I can’t say that even regular married life is entirely untroubled by disagreement.” His mouth barely twitched but his smile lit his eyes up. Miranda grinned too.  
He glanced at the kitchen clock. “It’s not late,” he suggested gently. “You could take the car if you like?”

XXXXX

 

Robyn eyed the end of the bottle of whisky. “Does that need drinking?”  
Nicola grinned reluctantly. “I suppose.”  
An inch or so went down discussing the horrors of a particular professor’s lectures and the idiosyncrasies of their tutors, which were sometimes amusing, more often annoying.  
Then as Robyn refilled their mugs, she said, “So, your friend Miranda. She’s going out with Philip’s sister, isn‘t she?”  
Nicola hesitated before answering, not to be secretive, but because it occurred to her that at this precise moment in time she didn’t know if they _were_ still.  
“It’s alright,” said Robyn. “I’m not being funny about it.”  
Nicola nodded. Surely the two of them would sort it out.  
Robyn said, mischievously, “Have you and Miranda ever - ?”  
“Ever what?”  
“You know. Shut up in that school of yours. Did you ever try it with a girl?”  
“No,” said Nicola, amused, but glad of the whisky. She couldn’t have had this conversation stone-cold sober.  
“Why not?”  
“Well, she’s my friend.”  
“That doesn’t have to rule out the other thing,” Robyn observed.  
“I never thought of it. I _like_ men.”  
“I’ve never seen you show much interest,” said Robyn, slyly “What type do you like?”  
“I don’t have a type,” said Nicola, honestly.  
“If you had to choose then.” Robyn emptied the last of the bottle. “You have to answer or drink.”  
“Oh, _really_ ,” said Nicola, thinking that this was childish, but feeling too lazy to argue.  
“Tall or short?”  
“Well, not short.”  
“Fair or dark?”  
“Fairish, I suppose.”  
“Thin or fat?”  
“No-one chooses fat, do they?”  
“Well, you might like them big and muscley. We’ll say lean and toned, shall we?”  
“If you like.”  
“Brown eyes or blue?”  
“Neither,” said Nicola, seeing too late where she had been led.  
“You _do_ like him!” said Robyn, grinning.  
“Oh, honestly! No-one would say he wasn’t nice to _look_ at. That’s not the same as being interested!” She decided to take back control of this conversation. “Anyway, my turn now. Is Dai your type?”  
“Yes. Funny and clever. And poetic. But we’re not serious.”  
“No?” Nicola looked pointedly at the rugby top that Robyn was wearing. She didn’t go out in it, but she seemed to live in it every evening in their rooms.  
“Well, we do have fun when we’re together,” explained Robyn. “But it’s not like we’re forsaking all others.”  
“Really?” asked Nicola sceptically. “Why?”  
“Well, he’s doing his thing and I’m here. It’s better to be open about it.”  
If that was true, thought Nicola doubtfully, then why did Robyn seem so defiant about it? Really, these evenings round the whisky bottle could be enough to put her off romance for ever.

XXXXX

 

Jan heard the delicate rap on the door and almost fell downstairs rushing to open it.  
Miranda stood well back on the pavement looking, Jan thought, very detached and elegant. “Can I come in,” she said, very cool.  
Jan stood back to let her in and shut the door after her. She followed her silently up the stairs, then her voice betrayed her, cracking and coming out as a treacherous squeak, “Miranda, I’m so sorry!”  
She had stepped impulsively towards her, but Miranda caught her arms and stopped her, holding her firmly but gently away. “No. Wait. I have to say something. Several things.”  
“Yes?” Jan said huskily, watching her face.  
“Firstly,” said Miranda, “this is _not_ a phase I’m going through. I’m never going to grow out of it.”  
“I don’t know why I said that! I was being a fool!”  
“I know. Just shut up and listen. I know what I want, and if that means moving to Outer Mongolia with you, then that’s what I’ll do.”  
“Oh, Mir..”  
“I love you and I want to be with you, always, properly. And if that’s _not_ what you want, then you have to say so, but don’t pretend it’s got anything to do with protecting me, because it won’t be.”  
“It is! What I want!”  
“Good,” said Miranda, with a sudden radiant smile, but not letting go yet.  
“Anything else?” said Jan meekly, but smiling, because now everything was going to be alright.  
“Yes. I might have flown off the handle a little bit last night. I’m sorry too.” She finally dropped Jan’s arms, only to take hold again because words were no longer enough.

 

Some time later, they lay tightly wound round each other in bed.  
Jan, resting her head on Miranda‘s chest, said eventually, “Don’t do that again.”  
Miranda, who had been thinking pleasurably, so _that’s_ why people go on about 'making-up' sex, said facetiously, “I thought you rather enjoyed it?”  
“Not that! I mean, don‘t leave again.”  
Jan felt Miranda’s arms tighten automatically around her, and Miranda’s lips against her hair. “Never.”  
“Where did you go?”  
“I went looking for a man to show me a good time,” said Miranda lightly, and felt Jan’s stiffen against her. “Then I came to my senses and went to see Nicola instead.”  
“Oh. Good. And what did she say?”  
Miranda mused. “I think she rather agreed with everything you said, actually.“  
Jan started to laugh, silently, so that Miranda felt the vibrations rippling all the way up her body too.  
“What a _sensible_ friend,” Jan said, softly teasing.  
“Isn‘t she,” agreed Miranda. “That’s another thing. Can you stop looking cross every time I mention her and your brother in the same sentence?”  
“I don’t, do I?”  
“Yes,” said Miranda, gently chiding. “You do.”  
“I can’t entirely help that. I’m the only one that’s ever worried about him.”  
“Well, she’s my friend. And I’m sure he’d rather you didn’t.”  
They were both sleepily silent, letting the rise and fall of each other’s breathing fill and content them, until Miranda drowsily remembered a thought from earlier. “I was reading one of Nick’s books on the train. They imagined how we were all double people before. And now we’re all separated and have to go looking for our missing halves?”  
“I know,” murmured Jan.  
“You see, that’s how I knew, right back in school. I _knew_. I was missing you before I even knew it was you.”  
Jan kissed her. “I love you,” she said.  
Miranda said it back. Then like children charmed by a new phrase, they kept repeating it to one another at intervals, until Jan, saying it last, got no answer, and found Miranda had fallen asleep.


	20. Three Brothers.

Normally when they were performing in London, they met at the club itself. But coming out of the tube station Nicola was surprised to hear her name called, and looking round, saw Philip sheltering in the entrance, waiting for her.  
“I thought you might need to be warned,” he said gloomily. “It’s half-term apparently.”  
“I know that,” she said. Half-term was the reason Robyn hadn’t come with her - Robyn’s teacher parents were making a long-threatened visit to see her in Oxford. “What’s the matter with that?”  
“Because the twins are on half-term from their school and Dad and Jenny have brought them to London for the Tower and the museums and all the rest. And Jan, in her infinite wisdom, thought she would bring them all along tonight for a _lovely_ night out, seeing as their hotel is so inconveniently close.”  
“I see,” said Nicola, about to protest that _she’d_ hardly needed warning about that, and realising just in time that it wasn’t that at all.  
The night was wet and she pulled up her parka hood. As they walked she couldn’t help wondering if it had been a conscious decision for him to look as tattered as possible. Under his open jacket he was wearing his most favourite but also oldest and most faded Kinks T-shirt, and threadbare jeans with tears in both legs. (Robyn had said once, of a similar pair, that perhaps someone with long fingernails had been trying to rip them off. She privately _damned_ Robyn; who was putting far too many uncomfortable ideas in her head.)  
“What?” he said, seeing her glance.  
“Just being impressed by what a special effort you‘ve made to dress for them,” she said.  
He grinned reluctantly. “I’m sure Jan will turn up suited and booted like a respectable member of society. Just so he knows one of his children isn’t a complete write-off.”  
“Oh Phil, he can’t think that!” she said, instinctively.  
The pavement was crowded with people hurrying towards the station with their heads down against the fine drizzle. They kept being pushed apart until he hooked arms with her. “Actually, as it happens Jan isn’t behaving to plan either.”  
“Why not?”  
“It seems a job in London is more appealing than going back to Uncle Joe’s.”  
“Oh, but that’s really good!” she said, pleased.  
“Yes. I think so too.”  
“But your father will be annoyed?”  
“If anyone should mind it‘s our uncle,” he said. “It doesn’t matter any more what Dad thinks.”  
If that was true, Nicola thought but didn’t say, why was she sensing an unfamiliar edginess in him? So she asked him instead about the order they were going to fit three new songs in, and they discussed their set until they reached the venue.

She returned from tidying herself up in the ladies, to find him on his guitar, playing himself into a better mood. He still had raindrops caught in his hair, but like the Sprog after rousing, he had somehow lost his ruffled look. For the next hour, as they warmed up, and then performed, the only thing either of them thought about was each other and the music.

Afterwards, as Philip greeted his family, Nicola hung back slightly to say hi to Miranda. “Are you being moral support?” she whispered.  
“Well - officially I happen to have come along because I’m friends with you,” Miranda replied, low-voiced. “No-one’s talking very much. We’ve all been smiling ever so politely at each other while you did your thing.”  
Philip and his father acknowledged each other in the wary, formal manner of people who are now almost strangers but who once knew each other better than anyone. He gave Jenny a dutiful peck on the cheek, then he turned to the boys. “Blimey, when did you both get so tall?“ The twins were clearly delighted to see Philip in the awkward, head-hanging way of thirteen year old boys. He promptly embarrassed them both by giving them each a bear hug in turn.  
Dr Scott shook hands with Nicola. He looked like an older, more weary version of Philip, and meeting his eyes she saw the same clear grey eyes that Jan had.  
The twin boys bore a sibling resemblance to Philip and Jan, somewhat ruddier in complexion and without their father’s fine bone structure. Which made sense, Nicola supposed, if what Philip had said was true. Their stepmother pushed forward, introducing herself cheerfully. “I’m Mrs Scott, but do call me Jenny. We thought your singing was stunning, simply lovely. You ought to be on the telly.”

 

They all sat down at one of the long trestle tables, which made it easier to have separate conversations at each end than for everyone to talk. Nicola found a twin on each side. The one on her left, Robert, had Phil on his left. He seemed to be the more confident one.  
“When can we come and see you properly?” he asked Philip, as soon as they sat down.  
“What do you mean, _properly?_ ”  
“You know - you with your band. Doing _real_ music?”  
“And what have you just been listening to, you ignorant boy?”  
“Oh, well I don’t mean this wasn’t _alright_ ,” he explained , glancing cautiously at Nicola. “I did _quite_ enjoy it. Only it’s not particularly my thing,”  
“You can come on Friday if you’re still here?”  
“Oh, yes!” both boys said in sudden excitement.  
“It’s tickets only, and it usually sells out, but you could come with us and stay backstage?”  
Both boys looked as if they were about to burst; rather as she would have looked at thirteen if Giles had promised to show her round his ship, thought Nicola amused.  
“ _Can_ we, Dad?” they both said, interrupting his low-voiced conversation with Jan.  
“No, of course not,” he answered them irritably once it had been explained.  
“Oh, why not, love?” put in Jenny,. “The boys could go and have fun together, and we could have a nice dinner somewhere?”  
“Oh, no, I really don’t think so.”  
Both boys deflated, and so did Jenny rather, thought Nicola. Philip leaned back in his chair, decidedly expressionless.  
Graham, the twin on her right, seemed to be the quieter one, and at first it was hard work trying to talk to him. She asked him some fairly auntish questions about his half-term, which he mostly answered in monosyllables, until she happened to ask what else he’d like to visit. He answered that he wished they could come in the summer, and go to Lords. After that they could safely talk about cricket and he suddenly became quite chatty and confiding.  
They were happily exchanging opinions on Geoffrey Boycott when Robert, who had been trying to impress Philip with his opinions on various bands, overheard what they were talking about and joined in.  
Nicola made a comment about batting, and Robert, with a certain amount of teenage bravado blurted out, “How do you know so much about it anyway? You’re a girl?”  
“I am? Someone should have _told_ me,” Nicola replied easily.  
“No - I mean, _girls_ don’t play cricket.”  
“They did at our school,” interjected Miranda, who had been half-listening for some time, uncomfortable at the exasperated discussion going on between Jan and her father over the wisdom of throwing up golden opportunities.  
“Really?” asked Robert sceptically.  
“We _all_ did. Ask your sister.”  
With some relief, Jan turned to them when Robert appealed to her. “We did indeed. Though Nicola’s the one who could really play. I should think she’s gone down in school history.”  
“Why?”  
“Well. Leading the form to four Cricket Cups.”  
Nicola raised an eyebrow at Miranda who must have told Jan all about that, but Miranda just grinned back, unabashed, and said, “Our most _famous_ victory was against Jan’s form.”  
“Gosh, yes,” said Jan. “The Lower Fourths beating the Sixth Form. It was the most comic match.” And she embarked on a retelling of the story. Nicola found it highly amusing to hear it told from the Sixth Form point of view, but she was surprised at how much of the detail Jan actually remembered - more than she did actually. But then they had won three more after that, so perhaps the details had blurred a bit.  
That story told, with the whole table now relaxed and smiling, Mr Scott turned to Graham and said, “Graham had a rather good innings himself this summer. Tell everyone about the match on Open Day.”  
But Graham, with the attention of the whole table on him, faltered and reverted to painful hesitation so Dr Scott, who had been a spectator on the day, took up the tale with obvious pleasure. He made a good story out of it. Everyone was listening with genuine amusement, smiling and laughing in the right places when Nicola’s eye fell on Philip. He was gently swirling the last inch of drink in the bottom of his glass, as if that was all that interested him in the world, and without knowing why, Nicola thought clearly, he’s about to walk out.  
“Shall we get some more drinks in?” she blurted out which was the first thing that came into her head. He shot her a look of infinite relief and instantly got up too.  
He leant silently on the bar as she ordered her way though the boys’ cokes, Jenny’s Cinzano, white wines for Miranda and Jan and Phil and his father’s beers. Philip added a double whisky . Mistaking her look, he said, “Don’t worry. I’ll get it.” Then feeling in his pockets, he added, “Actually who am I kidding? We’ll take it out of our pay and you take home the rest.” Nicola nodded, not bothered.  
“Well, here’s to the ghost at the feast,” said Philip, draining half the whisky as soon as it was put down on the bar. Then, “I didn’t know you were such a sporting hero.”  
“Oh, well, it was only school stuff,” she replied, diffidently.  
“That’s what you said about your singing once.”  
“I did? Will they give us a tray, do you think?” she said, eyeing the line of drinks as they were put in front of them.  
“And you’ve got the boys eating out of your hands now. I can see Graham’s getting a proper little crush on you,” he said.  
“Oh no, “ she said, embarrassed, not sure how much he was joking, or how much the admiration of a thirteen year old was worth.  
“Obviously a boy of taste and discernment,” he said, grinning, as he carried off the first couple of glasses.  
“Fool!” she said, because obviously now he was joking.  
In their absence the boys had renewed their attack on their father to be allowed to go to the gig on Friday. “We won’t ask for any thing else all week,” Robert was saying earnestly, as Nicola put their cokes down.  
Maybe Jan had said something persuasive, or maybe they had just worn him down, because Mr Scott had yielded to the point of saying, “Well, we’ll have to see.”  
Jenny said, “Oh, thank you love,“ as Philip put her drink down and sat back down beside her. “How are you, dear? It seems ages since we’ve seen you.“ She seemed to have to tread a fine line with Philip and Jan between her natural friendliness and being snubbed for over-familiarity. Philip answered her kindly enough but briefly.  
Then conversation seemed to stall again, and Jenny, over-eager to fill a gap, said, “So tell us, Jan. Have you got some lovely young man tucked away that’s keeping you in London?”  
Jan gave her brief snubbing half-smile that usually killed off further attempts at conversation. Then she put her glass down rather too firmly and said, “Actually, Miranda and I are together.”  
There was a stunned, goldfish moment as Jenny’s mouth opened without words. Mr Scott looked sharply at Miranda, who was looking startled, as if he hadn’t noticed her before.  
“You mean .. “ faltered Jenny eventually.  
“I mean we’re _together_. We’re getting a flat together.”  
“Oh, so you’re ‘partners’?”  
“If you like. In everything.”  
Nicola, watching the scene unfold in fascination, felt her arm twitched, and Graham whispered, “What does she _mean?_ Does she mean - the - the _‘L-word’_?”  
“Yes,” she whispered back. Robert was having a similar low-voiced conversation on her left.  
“How can they? They’re both girls?”  
“How about I explain later?” said Philip.  
“Perhaps you could draw me a diagram?” said Robert with wide-eyed pretend innocence.  
“That’s your _sister!_ ”  
“Well, I didn’t mean _faces_ …”  
Nicola caught Philip’s eye and looked away hastily. Philip hissed a threat in Robert’s ear which silenced him.  
Nicola’s attention was drawn back to the others. Mr Scott still seemed stunned, but Jenny had rallied bravely. “Well, I think it must be lovely never having to worry about the toilet seat being left up. Don’t you think, dear.” She nudged him rather heavily, and he stirred himself slowly.  
“I’m sorry if I seem rather rude, Miranda,” he said. “It was just a little unexpected.”  
As everyone frantically wondered what to say next, Nicola inadvertently created another diversion. Glancing at her watch, she had realised what time it was. “I absolutely have to run!” she exclaimed, “Or I’m going to miss my train.”  
“How about we get you a taxi to Waterloo,” suggested Dr Scott, after her hasty explanation. “Save running for the tube.” Relieved to have a distraction he went outside and flagged down a cab while she said hurried, inadequate good-byes.

Once Nicola had gone, Miranda and Jan, by tacit consent, decided that they had to get up early for work in the morning, and really they should be getting a move on too. As they all said distinctly relieved good-byes, Jenny added that really, it was time the boys were in bed too.  
“You go on,” said Dr Scott. “I’ll just finish this and I’ll catch you up.”  
That left Philip and his father, eyeing each other cautiously over the last of their beer.  
“That was a rather unexpected evening,” said Dr Scott, eventually. “I did like your friend Nicola.”  
“Yes. Everybody does,” said Philip absently, thinking how sad and defeated his father looked.  
“She certainly has a beautiful voice,” added Dr Scott, then paused. Philip watched him, waiting. “What do you make of this - this relationship - of Jan’s?”  
“Oh, come on. Dad. She just wants to wake up with someone she can talk to. Same as anyone else. You don’t _care_ , do you?”  
“No, well, I suppose times are changing. No-one ever mentioned these things when I was young. One just has to get used to it, I suppose. Like everything else.”  
“Let Graham and Robert come on Friday,” said Philip, sensing weakness. “You know I’ll look after them.”  
“I know that,” his father replied. He hesitated, a wall of memories between them. “Only Robert’s getting rather full of himself these days.”  
“He’s thirteen is all. Let them come, and you can take Jenny out for a nice child free evening. She’d like that.”  
“They _are_ at boarding school. We do have plenty of evenings alone at home,” Dr Scott protested mildly.  
“With you on call half the time, I bet,” said Philip, suddenly seeing.  
Dr Scott gave in. “Well, maybe. But only if they behave impeccably between now and then.”

 

Miranda and Jan, walking home, kept stopping to laugh in near hysterical over-reaction.  
“Oh - her face!“ said Jan, gleefully, then, “Should I have warned you?”  
“Yes! No - maybe! I don’t know!” said Miranda, reliving what had been a thrilling if nerve-racking moment.  
“Poor woman!” said Jan with unconscious contempt. “She didn’t have a clue what to say!”  
“Oh, but she tried!” said Miranda, more fairly.  
“Yes, didn’t she? Dad just froze.” Their hands briefly clasped as they walked. “Still - that’ll stop him going on about going back to Norwich. He won’t want all the locals gossiping about how very ‘bohemian’ Miss Scott and her 'friend' are!”  
Miranda laughed.  
“It was bad enough when we were children,” continued Jan. “The _poor_ doctor - such a trial for him with Mrs Scott the way she is..”  
They were on a quiet street with no-one around. Miranda caught Jan’s hand and pulled her into a swift embrace. They kissed quickly, then walked on.  
“It was properly magnificent,” said Miranda. “You saying it out loud like that. It makes it seem official somehow.”  
“About as official as it can be,” answered Jan. “Unless we sent in a notice to the Old Girls’ magazine?” And they amused themselves for the rest of their walk home in thinking up neat, two line descriptions of their current status.


	21. Time Passes.

Nicola read. And read and read and read. She read until the words blurred in front of her eyes, and then she read some more. One reading list finished, another one started. She lugged a mountain of books home for Christmas, and took over the place in the library that had briefly been Karen’s. She supposed now that it must have been a hugely glorious relief for Karen, giving up on the whole thing, even if a husband and three steps was rather a high price to pay. And she privately promised herself that the one thing she was absolutely _not_ going to pack when she set sail that summer was anything with words on a page - unless it was a map or a harbour guide.  
She wondered perversely if all this reading she had to do now, was some kind of self-inflicted karma, balancing out her twelve year old self who could barely sit still enough to read a book if there was any excitement at all going on.  
The only diversion that Christmas was Ginty coming home for a visit, having apparently, as Peter said after she repeatedly leant across him at breakfast, lost the use of her right hand. This was so everyone could admire the sparkly adornment on her left hand.  
Nicola supposed that she was more pleased than not, that Ginty should have found someone nice. And that her mother should have eighteen months to plan a proper wedding to make up for Karen’s rush job - although no-one put it _quite_ like that.

 

XXXX

 

Philip caught her on an off-day when he came for an increasingly rare rehearsal session in January.  
“I really can’t,” she said, giving up on a new song that he’d wanted her to try. “It’s not my sort of song.”  
He looked discouraged, but didn’t argue.  
“You know what,” he said thoughtfully, after a moment. “It’s time you learned to play this.”  
“Me?” she asked in mild astonishment.  
“Yes. Come on.” He got off the backless chair he’d been sitting on. “Here.”  
“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully, remembering long-ago and disliked piano lessons.  
“Just for fun,” he said, coaxingly, and she found herself seated with the guitar resting on her thighs. She placed a cautious hand on the gleaming wooden curves. “Don’t worry, you can’t break it - well, you can, but only by being deliberately stupid. Here,” and he took her hand and guided it into the right place on the neck with each finger on a string. “This changes the pitch.” he said. He shifted her other arm, saying, “Relax. It’s just a box of air, really. Waiting for you to let it go.”  
She was aware of the warmth of the instrument where it had been resting against him. Experimentally, she brushed her fingertips down across the strings and felt ridiculously pleased at the response.  
“Just have a play,” said Philip, rocking back on his heels. She rather enjoyed herself, strumming tunelessly. Then catching his amused eye, stopped and grinned, embarrassed.  
“It sounds nice even when you don’t know what you’re doing,” he said. “Not like Miranda’s violin. Only, I’ve been thinking. If you could accompany yourself, even if it was just a note to start on, - maybe a bit more - you could do this properly on your own.”  
“Oh, but there’s no way I have the time to learn this!”  
“Not now, maybe, but in the future? You could go your own way entirely. Pure folk. Forget all the other stuff I keep failing to get you to try.” He was smiling, but she sensed the insistent return of a conversation they’d edged round before.  
Deflecting slightly, she said, “I thought you said the whole folk thing was finished.”  
“Commercially maybe. The big labels are only interested in finding the next punk band. But there’ll always be an audience who like to hear it, even if it’s only filling rooms above pubs.”  
She crashed the strings rather violently to avoid answering. She certainly wasn’t planning on spending the rest of her life singing in rooms above pubs. (Although what she _was_ going to do, she was no more certain of, other than _not_ doing a Masters as her tutor had suggested, and certainly _not_ any sort of teaching.)  
He winced a little, but said only, “Here, let me show you some chords.”  
He was a remarkably good teacher, gentle and patient, and she said afterwards, “If you don’t make it, you could always be a music teacher.”  
“I could,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t mind either. But I don’t think it’ll come to that yet.”  
Aware of a supremely confident note in his voice, she looked enquiry.  
“There’s this journalist, she writes for the NME, freelance stuff mostly, been coming to all our gigs and giving our tapes to people. And there’s others, people from record companies, the small indie ones, but they’re interested …” He reached out and took the guitar back and said, with a glint in his eye, “See, that’s why you need to learn this. You won’t be able to afford me soon.”

 

XXXXXXX

 

Nicola went home with another pile of books at Easter, but with Finals looming they were mostly re-reads for revision.  
Tessa, now a very elderly dog with an almost completely white muzzle, always forgot her years when Nicola first arrived home, and gave her the same rapturous greeting that she always had. She rarely went much further than the yard and garden with anyone else, but if Nicola went to the door, especially in wellies, Tessa would heave her aged bones out of bed and follow, as if she thought they could go hawking across the moors for miles again.  
Nicola, needing a walk to clear her brain after studying all morning, looked at Tessa’s optimistically wagging tail, and said, “Oh, alright then.”  
They could only do a pretend walk really, if Tessa came too; across one or two fields at most, with a stop to lean on a handy gate, before turning for home But she didn’t have the heart to leave her behind just for the sake of going further.  
It was a bright, breezy April day. Fine, fluffy clouds scudded across a blue spring sky. The earth itself seemed to be waking up after the winter; green shoots of spring wheat bursting up into the sunshine. Tessa, sniffing the air excitedly, seemed full of renewed energy and went happily ambling up the hedge line. Further up the rise of the field Nicola noticed a hare briefly prop itself on its hind legs and inspect them, before idly lolloping away. Time was when a hare seeing Tessa would have legged it instantly with the hound in eager if usually hopeless pursuit.  
Watching the hare running uphill reminded her of a line from one of her favourite songs. ‘Your idiot rambler’ Philip called it, after they’d had a light-hearted disagreement about the character in the song.  
“He dumps the poor girl at the altar. With eyes like yours!”  
“ _What?_ ”  
“That ‘matched the June moorland sky'? Aren’t you disgusted?”  
“Maybe she wasn’t very nice really. Maybe she was going to make him wear his Sunday best and visit the in-laws instead of going up to the mountains?”  
“He could have asked her to go too.”  
“Not if she’d had a pack of babies, he couldn’t.”  
“They could have taken them in those papoose things.”  
“He _liked_ being on his own. And anyway, what if it was you and someone was going to stop you from playing your guitar?”  
“That,” he said solemnly, “would be an _entirely_ different matter.”  
They used to have foolish conversations like that all the time, she thought, realising that she had been missing them. Everything had seemed much more serious lately.  
They hadn’t played that song for a long time. She still liked the character who would rather be alone in the mountains with the white hare and the curlews; but it had been Robyn that had made her feel funny about it. “Do you even know what it’s about?” she’d asked once. “I bet you don’t let a load of grubby oiks tramp all over _your_ land, do you?”  
Nicola’s answer, that it wasn’t her farm anyway, was clearly not much of an answer; neither was pointing out that they didn’t actually have any mountains or grouse moors at Trennels. Nor had she been able to come up with anything much better since then.  
Tessa had fallen behind, and it dawned on her that, lost in thought, she had walked further than she had intended. About to turn around, she saw an impossibly mediaeval figure silhouetted against the skyline; a rider, falcon on fist, coming on horseback along the headland at the far edge of the ploughed land. Like a Jan Pienkowski illustration in a fairytale, she thought; the prince on his way to rescue Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. She couldn’t help smiling a little at the idea of anyone waiting helplessly for _Patrick_ to rescue them.  
She realised that if Patrick carried on down the track he was on, they would inevitably meet. She couldn’t walk on - Tessa had already gone far enough. And to turn back now might look as if she was obviously avoiding him. Which she hadn’t consciously tried to do at all over the last year, even though it had worked out that they’d rarely seen each other. She knew that he’d spent the autumn working as an intern for one of Mr Merrick’s colleagues, but the hawk on his fist suggested that he must have plenty of time to spend at home now.  
So she perched herself on a convenient stump against the hedge and waited. Tessa flopped comfortably against her legs.  
She recognised the horse as Mr Merrick’s old cob, but the falcon was unfamiliar.  
“Is she new?” she asked, as Patrick pulled up beside her.  
The uncertain expression on his face relaxed. “Yes. This is Kate. She’s from a chap the other side of Wade Abbas who didn’t have time for her so she’s awfully unfit. It’s hard getting her started now - there’s no young rooks around for her to learn on.”  
“She is beautiful though,” said Nicola admiringly.  
“She is rather, even if she is being useless. Not like Regina,” he said, sounding wistful. “She’s captive bred of course, so she’s used to relying on humans for her food. Regina knew perfectly well she could fend for herself and she didn’t have to bother about me.”  
They were both briefly silent, sharing memories. Regina had raked away and been lost again years before. She could quite possibly still be alive and well, if she’d been lucky. “It would be nice to think she might have mated and produced a new generation of wild peregrines out there somewhere,” Patrick said.  
Nicola agreed, stroking the cob’s nose. They were old acquaintances, as she had ridden him often after Buster retired.  
“Peter said you had a new horse?” she asked, giving the conversation a quick shove.  
“Oh yes. Speedy. He definitely wouldn’t let the hawks anywhere near him. He’s come out of a racing yard where he couldn’t cope with life - it was all far too stressful for him. They could hardly get him to eat. So he’s having a lovely quiet time being mollycoddled by Sellars in between being a nutcase out hunting, and I’m going to point-to-point him. We’re in the Members’ Race on Easter Monday if you’re around? We’ve got quite a good chance if he doesn’t completely cart me first time round.”  
“Maybe,” said Nicola, thinking that possibly it could be fun, if Peter was going too.  
“Ma says Ginty is getting married?” said Patrick, as if talking about horses had summoned her up.  
“Yes. Not till next summer - though you wouldn’t know from the fuss Mum’s already making,” said Nicola. “They do all their big events in May and then they’re having the wedding while the horses have their holiday.”  
“Oh. You’ll be back by then, will you?”  
“Oh yes. I have to be. Under pain of death if I’m not,” she answered, grinning. Mildly contemptuous of all the fuss, she nevertheless thought that it would be quite fun to have a proper family wedding with the church done up properly and marquees on the lawn with all the trimmings.  
“Are you still singing?” Patrick asked, abruptly changing the subject again.  
“Yes, in theory but not so much really any more. Not with my Finals coming up. And Phil’s getting so busy with his band.”  
“Should I be watching out for him on Top Of The Pops then?”  
“They’re not really that sort of band,” she answered, wondering at the slight hint of sarcasm in his voice.  
The cob, leaning his head appreciatively against Nicola’s gently rubbing hand, shifted reluctantly as Patrick twitched the reins and touched his sides with his heels. “I’d better keep going,” he said. “Maybe see you at the Point-to-Point.”  
Nicola agreed that he might and watched him ride away, looking oddly old-fashioned from behind in his tweed hacking jacket. The conversation had been a bit stop-start perhaps, but it had been perfectly ordinary talking to him. It was curious to think that he was just another person that she might run into and chat with at home, like Ted or Shep or Mrs Pedder in the Shop.  
She gave him a good head-start before calling Tessa who, selectively deaf anyway, had gone to investigate an interesting rustle in the undergrowth. The hedge behind her suddenly burst back into song, as all the birds who had fallen silent in the falcon’s hooded presence resumed activity, calling and courting, defending territory and filling the air with rippling trills, notes and warbles. A right tuneful racket, in fact.  
_The song birds keep singing, like they know the score._ The line came unbidden to mind, from one of the songs she hadn’t wanted to do and had given up on. Which had been silly really, she considered now, being her own critic. She did usually prefer the storytelling songs to the ones that she still privately described as a lot of gush, but still, possibly she should have given it more of a chance. And as she walked back down the track to Trennels, she tried it out, softly under her breath at first, and then, because Tessa was half-deaf and wouldn’t be bothered anyway, increasingly full-voiced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Manchester Rambler is here -  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENYMwuCG2Y


	22. Out Of Her Depth.

Robyn returned after Easter with the sheepish air of someone who hasn’t done their homework. She had spent her break joining up with the band and touring with them.  
“I haven’t done any work at all,” she announced, sounding defiant rather than regretful.  
“What’s all this then?” Nicola asked, of a sheaf of hand-written sheets stacked up on Robyn’s table.  
“It’s a sort-of tour diary,” said Robyn.  
“What’s it for?”  
“Well, if - when - they get famous, I can put it in a book. And if not, at least it’s practice.”  
“Practice for what?”  
Sounding unusually diffident, Robyn said, “I’m thinking I could do that - writing about bands. Music journalism. You can look at it if you want.”  
Nicola took the top sheet and read it curiously. It started with a description of the opening song of a set, and it felt oddly like watching him - them - without him knowing.  
“You don’t have to wade through it all,” said Robyn as Nicola turned the page over.  
“It’s really good,” said Nicola, quite truthfully.  
“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” said Robyn. “Anyway, leave it now and clear off - I really had better start doing some work!”

  
XXXXX

  
After weeks - months - of hard slog they were finally making their way to their last ever exam. Nicola’s exam nerves were only ever mild, but Robyn was looking most peculiar, which thought Nicola, was odd. Robyn generally took exam papers even more casually than Nicola herself did.  
“You go on,” said Robyn, suddenly looking distinctly green. Then before Nicola could react in any way, she turned hurriedly and was violently sick into a handy drain.  
Relieved that she had a supply of tissues in her bag so could be usefully helpful, rather than just embarrassingly concerned, Nicola waited.  
“Are you going to be ok? For the exam?” she asked, when she thought Robyn was ready to say anything.  
“It’s alright. It usually only happens once,” Robyn answered. “It was having coffee, it‘s started to really turn my stomach, only I was trying to wake myself up for this.”  
“What do you mean ‘usually’?” Nicola asked, eyeing her suspiciously.  
“Just leave it, OK?” Robyn said in a voice that dared her to argue. “We’ve got an exam to get through. Haven’t we?”  
Nicola supposed they had. But she felt decidedly disturbed on her friend’s behalf. She couldn’t imagine anything more disastrous happening to anyone.

  
“At least everything’s over. It hasn’t buggered up Oxford,” said Robyn, sipping lemonade without enthusiasm. They were part of a group who were all out to celebrate the end of exams, but they had slipped away to sit on a bench in the pub garden.  
“Have you said anything yet?” asked Nicola, meaning Dai.  
Robyn shook her head. “I’m not going to tell my parents until I absolutely have to. The later I leave it, the harder it will be for Mum to try and pressure me to do the ‘sensible thing’.”  
“Which is?”  
“Getting rid,” said Robyn bluntly.  
“Really?” Nicola tried and failed to imagine how her own mother would react if one of them were in the same predicament.  
“It’s what she always said when girls at school got caught.” She frowned. “I mean, I’m not religious or anything. But it is a little person, right?”  
“Do you like babies?”  
“No! But it won’t _be_ a baby forever.”  
“And Dai?”  
Robyn was silent.  
“It _is_ his?”  
“Yes!”  
“So?”  
“So what? It doesn’t have to have anything to do with him. It’s not his problem.”  
“It ought to be,” retorted Nicola. “Besides - it’s _Dai_. Surely he’d _want_ to - you know - help.”  
“Because _that’s_ what everyone wants? A baby they didn’t ask for?”  
“Who made it?”  
“He thought I was taking care of things. And I was - I don’t know why it happened. But we were only having fun. It wasn’t like we were ever going to settle down.”  
“I bet he would. If you said.”  
“I bet he doesn’t even think about me when I’m not there - too busy reaping the fruits of being in a band.” She looked sharply at Nicola. “You’re going to tell me it’s not fruit you reap, aren’t you? But honestly, it doesn’t matter how puny and pale and spotty someone is, the minute they’re in a band, there’s girls throwing themselves at them. And they’re not going to beat them off with sticks, are they?”  
“He can’t want that for ever though?”  
Robyn gloomed.  
“It’s not much fun for a kid is it, knowing they were a little accident and that’s the only reason their parents are together,” she said eventually. “And what if it doesn’t work out? Then what? I’m not trapping him into something that will make us all miserable.”  
“Oh, _Robyn_..”  
“I know. Not what one hopes to leave Oxford with, is it?”  
Nicola had never felt so out of her depth. Maybe Robyn was right. She was guiltily reminded of poor Edward Oeschli being shipped about, and Judith - whose shotgun wedding hadn’t helped anyone, least of all her. But then Dai was Dai, and she’d always thought that he and Robyn were far keener on each other than either of them pretended.

XXXXX

 

She had agreed with Philip to do one last night at Joy’s before she packed up to go home - a sort-of farewell show. It was only a short walk from this year’s lodgings, and she arrived there in good time. Robyn had said she would come along later - because, as she said, she didn’t feel like sitting there inventing reasons why she wasn’t drinking.  
“Why do you have to?” asked Nicola.  
“Not drink? You’re not supposed to apparently. And besides, I’ve gone right off it.”  
“I meant, do you have to explain? Can’t you just not?”  
“No. Someone would be bound to ask what was wrong with me.”  
“You can’t keep this up. Say something!” Nicola had said, impulsively.  
To which Robyn had given her a nasty look, saying that it must be wonderful to have life as well sorted out as Nicola did.  
So she was here now, early, and on her own. And having thought that it would be rather fun doing this for the last time, she became aware of an inexplicable feeling, like a heavy frog settling on her chest.  
It was the last time she would feel this sense of anticipation, somewhere between nerves and excitement. The last time she would be let in the back door before the pub opened. The last time she would perch on one of the bar stools, idly chatting to Joy while she prepared to open up. Last time waiting for Philip. She supposed she had been hoping that he would be there already, as he sometimes was, but his arrival could depend on the vagaries of late running trains. Tonight he really was unusually late; Joy had opened up and the first customers had drifted in and settled down.  
They arrived eventually, in very high spirits, Philip and Dai and a friend they’d brought with them; a sharp looking girl with bright, curious eyes. Clearly they had been drinking already on the train. She felt a slight twitch of unease; they had brought friends along before, but only to the London nights.  
Rather reassuringly for Robyn’s sake, Dai looked round and immediately asked where she was.  
“We’re late,” said Philip, sounding not in the least bit sorry. “Shall we go straight up?”  
“Yes, why not?” agreed Nicola, aiming for Rowan-style dryness, but realising she only sounded annoyed.  
He bounded up the stairs ahead of her. “We had to get the next train. We missed the usual one because we were celebrating.”  
She followed him into their practice room, and he cocked an eyebrow at her. “Are you going to ask me _why_ we were celebrating?”  
“Why were you celebrating?” she asked obediently, and he beamed.  
“Because we are now officially signed up with a record contract!”  
“That’s wonderful!”  
He grinned broadly again; she was smiling too, because of course it was fantastic, and she could see how happy he was. But a tiny, unworthy part of her was feeling sad too because it seemed to underline that they were really and truly doing this for the last time.  
She watched him tuning the guitar, and said, “Better be all the fun songs tonight then?”  
“Yes - none of the sad ones!”  
She hadn’t been going to actually ask, but she did anyway, “Who did you bring?”  
“Oh - Christie? I told her she was coming to hear a _real_ voice!” he answered, cheerful but off-hand. “So let’s go.”  
The last time it would be just the two of them in this room; the last time warming up; the last time his fingers would pluck the notes from the strings; the last time her voice would soar free.  
“Ready?” he asked, and she nodded. He gave her a searching glance from under those long lashes, “Ok?”  
“Yes,” she said. They descended the stairs. She saw with relief that Robyn had arrived, and was talking with seeming animation to that Christie girl.  
Everybody clapped as Philip took her hand for the last time and led her up to the dais. She sang - all of their favourites - and then that was that.

 

What Nicola hadn’t expected was how many of their regular audience wanted to say something or talk to her, wishing her luck for the future, knowing that she was leaving. She was both surprised and touched.  
She realised Philip had gone back to the others. She glanced across as he slid into a seat at their table, looking terrifically pleased as he said something. And that girl leaned across and grabbed his arm in a peculiarly intimate gesture and said something very close to his ear. It was like taking a false step. Something rearranged itself in her brain.  
If she’d kept watching she might have seen him laugh and shrug her off. But other friends were talking to her, and she kept murmuring the same things; yes, she was going away, yes it would be lovely to come back and do it again sometime…  
Robyn, appeared at her elbow.  
“I’m getting this round in - come and help?”  
Nicola nodded, assuming this was an excuse to talk.  
“Look, Nick, if you get the next lot in, can you do the same?” Robin had ordered tonic water for herself, which would of course look no different to a vodka and tonic.  
“Yes, ok, but honestly - do you think they’re even going to notice - the state they’re getting in?”  
“They’re entitled to celebrate!” snapped Robyn.  
“I didn’t mean they weren’t - just that you don’t need to worry?”  
“It’s not as if I can say anything now,” said Robyn, gloomy again.  
“Well, no, probably not quite the moment.”  
“I didn’t mean right now especially. I meant now they’ve been signed and everything.”  
“Why ever not? Won’t it make it easier? He’ll be better off, surely?” asked Nicola, and then before Robyn could even answer, saw for herself.  
“That’s _exactly_ why I can’t!”  
Joy came along behind the bar, as Robyn carried away some of the drinks. “I’ll give you the money, love, as you’re here. I don’t suppose his mind’s on it tonight either?” she asked, smiling. Nicola nodded; usually Philip did sort out the money, but she might just as well take it.  
Joy opened the till, and counting it out, passed it to Nicola. Nicola frowned, puzzled. “Is that right?”  
Joy looked quizzical. “Same as always, love. Unless he’s expecting more now he thinks he’s going to be a big star?”  
“No, no,” said Nicola, embarrassed. “Just I wasn’t counting it right.” She shoved it hastily in her pocket, but she was confused. The money had only been very little over what Philip usually handed her as her share.  
“I’ll miss you two, practising here,” added Joy. “You will come back and visit? And we can always fit you in if you ever want a spot here. Anytime.”  
It was briefly comforting to reminisce gently with Joy, about their very first night there. Then Philip appeared beside her, wondering where his drink was, and was drawn in too. But when Joy moved off to serve someone else, Nicola said, as casually as she could, “She paid us, while I was here,” and pulled it out and dumped it on the bar.  
“Oh, good. That’ll be your last lot, then.” He met her eye, and surprised, added, “What?”  
“I don’t understand how it works out.”  
“I’m not with you?”  
“Don’t we get half each?”  
“No - it‘s all yours”  
She stared at him, aware of incoherent and confusing anger starting to simmer. “So what do you get?”  
“Well, I take my train fare usually. Not in London of course. _What,_ Nick? What are you so cross about?”  
“I’m not,” she lied.  
“Here, let me take this over and then I‘ll come back,” he said, scooping the pints off the bar. She watched him walk away, and the others at the table - Dai, laughing and cheerful, and Robyn, acting like she didn’t have a care in the world, roaring over something with that other girl. She suddenly felt that she didn’t want to be there any more. She couldn’t do anything for Robyn, her problem was way beyond any ability _she_ had to help. And the others were just so happy, her current state of annoyance would only get in the way of their mood of jubilation.  
Philip returned as she slid off her bar stool.  
“What are you doing?” he asked, looked puzzled.  
“I need to go home,” she said shortly. “Sorry, I’m not in the mood.”  
He followed her out. “Nick, what’s the matter?”  
Furious, she was walking fast, but he kept pace with her. “I assumed we were splitting it equally!”  
“So?” he asked, utterly bewildered.  
“Well, you never _told_ me!”  
“I didn’t know you _didn’t_ know. I never even thought about it.”  
She glared at him, and something unfamiliar about his shape checked her. “You’ve left your guitar behind.” She was used to it always hanging on his back when he walked her home.  
Briefly, he blinked, then said, “Dai will bring it. Nick, I don’t understand why you’re upset.”  
“It’s patronising, that‘s what. Not telling me!”  
“You never asked!”  
“It wasn’t right. Or fair,” she said.  
“Why not? You were only in it to get money for your boat. And you got it!”  
“What about you?”  
“I did it because I loved it. You‘re acting as if I‘d ripped you off!”  
She had no answer to that, but she didn’t feel any better. After a moment’s tense silence he said, “For Chrissake, what does it even matter?”  
For the first time, he sounded angry himself. She couldn’t have entirely said herself why she was so cross - other than the raw, skinned sense of not having known something she ought to have known.  
She kept walking automatically. Half a street’s length passed while he waited for her to answer.  
“If I’d known I could have said not to,” she said eventually.  
“It’s you people are listening to,” he said. “That’s _why_ , if you need a reason.”  
“Not just me. Us,” she protested.  
He put out a hand and caught her arm to slow her because they had reached her gateway. She stopped and turned. “No,” he said firmly. “You could have any old idiot banging out the notes and no-one would notice. You could do it on your own if you needed to.”  
“No, I couldn’t,” she said. “I couldn’t do it without you.”  
“Why not?” he said at last.  
She could hardly see his eyes in the shadows. She gazed at him, aware suddenly of far too much explanation and not enough words.  
“Why not?” he repeated, moving closer.  
And then he kissed her. Or rather, he leant in to kiss her. She was aware in the silence of her heart thumping, his sudden intoxicating closeness, and then the curve of his lips against hers. But a highly inconvenient image of that girl whispering in his ear interposed itself, and she stepped back sharply. “No!” she snapped. “You can’t just do that and think everything‘s alright. I’m not one of your - your _groupies!_ ”  
Horribly aware of a pricking sensation at the back of her eyes, and a tight explosive feeling in her throat, she had to get away.  
“Goodnight!” she snapped out and turned on her heel through the archway. She thought he might have been trying to say something, but he made no attempt to follow.


	23. Home Truths.

After a hot, restless, agonizingly sheet-kicking night Nicola decided to give up even _being_ in bed and went out into the cool of the early morning air. Walking aimlessly at first, she came to a bridge parapet from where she could lean and gaze at the soothingly flowing river. She would phone, she decided, as soon as it was an even half-way respectable time, but what on earth was she going to _say_ ….  
She no longer wanted to cry, although she had last night in the secrecy of her pillow - and that was bad enough. She supposed she had behaved like the worst kind of hysterical female. It made a mockery of all those times that she had been secretly proud of not crying and people assuming that she must not even have any emotions. It had been both unexpected and frightening to have feelings that were controlling her instead of the usual way round. And not being able to _stop_ them.  
The sun was well up now and slanted through the sluggish water under the banks to where the green weed spread its tendrils. Stray twigs like abandoned poohsticks floated towards her, weaving on the faster current and sliding under the bridge beneath her.  
“Cheer up,” said a vaguely familiar voice. “It may never happen!” Two students - very slight acquaintances - seemingly on their way back from a night out, had stopped beside her. She grinned and agreed that it might not, and as their year were doing whenever they met, wished them luck and so long.  
Time to find a phone box, but annoyingly, she had to go back to the room first to get some money. By then it was nine o clock which was quite an acceptable time to ring someone surely. There was no sign of Robyn, she tentatively tapped on her door as she passed, but there was no answer. She might well have gone home with Dai last night.  
The phone rang and rang but no-one answered. She put the phone back in its cradle, and then, biting her lip in indecision, decided to ring again. They might have been just waking up and not got to the phone on time. But still no-one answered.  
She had to talk to _someone_. She dialled Lawrie’s number, not really expecting her to answer, but almost instantly, she did.  
“Lal! I didn’t expect you to answer!”  
“Why did you ring then?” answered Lawrie, with perfect logic.  
“Oh well, just on the off-chance. What are you doing?”  
“I’ve got a call-back. And I’m trying to get my hair to work only it won’t.”  
“What’s a call-back? And what’s wrong with your hair?”  
“It means I’ve had an audition and they want me to go back and see them again.”  
“Is that good?”  
“Yes, of course! It’s only for a nothing part though, I mean it‘s tiny; I literally have about two lines. Still - cross fingers for me?”  
“All crossed. When can I uncross them?”  
“About lunchtime, I should think.”  
“And why does your hair have to be a special way?”  
“It doesn’t especially. I was trying to look - well, Michael said I could look like Debbie Harry if I tried so I was experimenting.”  
“Well, if you do, then so do I. Who is she?”  
“Oh Nick - _really?_ ” Lawrie sounded amused and indulgent. “Why don’t you ask Philip?”  
“I don’t think I can,” said Nicola. “Not now.”  
“Why? What have you done?”  
She hadn’t meant to tell the unedited version, but because it was Lawrie, most of the story came out just as it had happened.  
“Oh, Nicola, how _could_ you?” exclaimed Lawrie, when she had finished. “Honestly, of all the steaming nitwits!”  
“Thank you - all kind opinions gratefully received!”  
“Poor Philip!” said Lawrie. “ Moving in for the kill and there’s you looking at him all out-cutlasses-and-board - he’s not going to try that again, is he?”  
Nicola had no answer to that. Lawrie continued brightly, “Of course, he might have thought the whole thing was _terrifically_ funny.”  
It was quite the worst thing Lawrie could have said.  
Nicola swallowed. “Look Lawrie, don’t say anything to anyone, will you? I mean I haven’t told anyone else.”  
“Not even Miranda?”  
“No, of course not Miranda.”  
“Oh,” said Lawrie, pleased. “Well, I’m probably the best person to tell anyway, when you’ve done something stupid. Seeing as how I’ve had the most experience of doing stupid things myself,” she added, sagely. “But really, Nick, didn’t you _want_ to kiss him?”  
And of course - she _had_. She had for ages. Now she just wondered why it had taken her so long to _realise_ it.  
She pondered Lawrie’s words as she walked back. She had replayed the scene from last night over and over, and no longer knew what was genuine memory and what was something she had projected back. But in either version there was nothing about Philip’s face that had seemed to find anything remotely funny. Which was not to say, of course, that he hadn’t managed to spin it into an amusing story by the time he got home.

XXXXX

The problem with packing up, she realised later, was that she had accumulated so much stuff during term-time that it wouldn‘t fit back into the bags she had originally brought. Hopefully Peter would remember to bring some boxes. She had the window and door of her room open to let a breeze through and was trying to wrap her records together protectively in a folded sheet, when Robyn walked in.  
“Oh,” she said, eyeing Nicola’s suitcase. “I suppose I should start that.” She perched uninvited on the end of Nicola’s stripped bed. “Have you got any food that needs finishing off. Only I came back without any breakfast, and I’m starving.”  
Nicola passed her remaining packet of ginger nuts across, and carried on with what she was doing.  
“Thanks. When are you leaving?”  
“My brother’s coming this afternoon,” answered Nicola, shortly, thinking she would rather be able to get on with this _without_ company.  
But Robyn seemed to want to talk. “So when do you actually go off in your boat?”  
“In a couple of weeks. I’ve promised to stay for Miranda’s opening.”  
“Her what?”  
“Her gallery - she’s having an official opening party. I’ll go straight after that.”  
Robyn watched Nicola slide her sheet parcel inside a pillow case, then said, “You left early last night.” The words hung in the air, clearly a question.  
Nicola shrugged, dismissively. “It can’t have been that early; it was nearly last orders.” She put her finished package of records carefully onto a nest of clothes in the open suitcase.  
“Did you and Phil have some sort of a row?” asked Robyn, cautiously.  
Caught on the raw, Nicola looked at her suspiciously. “Why?”  
“Nothing really. Just something Dai said…. It wasn’t anything specific..”  
“I would have thought that you and Dai would have had quite enough to discuss without needing to talk about _me,_ ” said Nicola, surprising herself at how icy her voice sounded. Robyn’s eyebrows shot up at the unaccustomed nastiness. She stood up slowly.  
“You know what your trouble is,” she answered, quite calmly and deliberately. “You’re just so used to having everything, that you don’t even bloody _realise_.”  
Nicola froze, stunned.  
Robyn continued, “Life’s not _like_ yours for everybody else. We don’t all have farms and posh schools and ponies and - and boats - and nobody else gets to sing like you do without even _trying_! And now you’ve got poor Phil who’d come running if you so much as waved your little finger and you just take it all for bloody granted!”  
“That’s not true!”  
Robyn stood in the doorway, glaring. “Yes, it sodding is! Honestly Nicola - sometimes I just really, really want to slap you!” And she left an astonished Nicola staring at the slammed door in shock.

XXXXX

 

Various thumps and busy voices and feet coming and going sounded along the corridor as people carted possessions away and gradually left. Robyn lay flat on her unmade bed and pulled a stray end of sheet over her face. It wasn’t right that she felt so rotten when she hadn’t even been drinking. She hadn’t packed, but her parents wouldn’t be driving up until after school ended anyway. She thought of their weary, let’s-just-get-to-the-end-of-term faces with both affection and dread. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing their happy pride in her turn to dismay, but she supposed she could leave dropping the bombshell until the schools broke up at least.  
Once she had thought that she might end up teaching too, after she had her degree. She supposed that it was a blessing in disguise that that possibility was closed now. What _was_ she going to do? She thought briefly and with secret hope about her writing: Christie had been genuinely complimentary when she had tentatively shown her some of what she had done; and had even said she would put a word in for her.  
She wished she hadn’t said all those things to Nicola. She hadn’t supposed that she and Nicola would keep in touch much - not because she didn’t want to, but because she assumed they wouldn’t cross paths much once they had left here, but she hadn’t wanted to leave it like this. She had never wanted to like her - Nicola represented everything about a certain type of person that she instinctively disliked. The world she came from, her class, her public school accent, her unconscious air of entitlement, those worn out but expensive brand-name clothes that only the country rich wore, that constant reserve. And yet.… she couldn’t help it; she _did_ like her, more than almost anyone else really.  
She wished, not for the first time in her life, that girls could fight more like boys did. Philip and Dai had had a fight the previous night which had died down as quickly as it had flared up. Dai had made a crude and ill-judged joke to a brooding Philip, who had lunged. Dai, considerably handy even when pissed, had fended him off for the few seconds in which Phil had really _meant_ it, and then they fought noisily like scrapping puppies, until they came crashing down, more by bad luck than intent, with Phil’s head against the base of the door. They swore genially at each other as Philip slowly peeled himself off the floor, pin pricks of blood welling up where his cheekbone had hit the door. Then they sat rather sheepishly drinking the coffee Robyn made, good humour restored. “Didn’t you say you were having your photos done today?” she’d asked, it being the early hours of the morning by then, eyeing Philip’s darkening bruise.  
“Did we? See - that’s why we need _you_ to come and manage us,” said Dai, referring to an old joke that she would be their manager if they ever got signed. Well, she had properly scuppered that plan, hadn’t she?  
A light tap on the door interrupted her gloomy musings. It opened a cautious crack and Nicola poked her head in timidly. “Can I come in?”  
“You _may_.” Robyn had never been quite sure why that was a joke, but it drew a relieved smile from Nicola.  
“I just wanted to say good-bye,” she said. “Are you ok?”  
“Sorry about earlier,” said Robyn, pulling herself upright so she could sit leaning against the wall.  
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Nicola.  
It occurred belatedly to Robyn that Nicola wasn’t looking the most cheerful she’d ever seen her. Not a clue, she thought. “You know something,” she said. “For what it's worth - when I was with the band over Easter - I mean, it was for over three weeks…"  
Nicola looked lost. “And?”  
“Well, I never saw Phil with anyone. Going off after the show or anything.”  
“You were the one who said all that about them having girls all over!”  
“I know,” said Robyn patiently. “I’m not unsaying. Just telling you what I saw. In case it’s relevant. Even with Christie - she was flirting with him the whole time - sort of joking, but really meaning it too, if you know what I mean? And nothing."  
Robyn noticed a sudden intent look in Nicola’s eyes, but she asked steadily enough, “Who is she anyway?”  
“You met her last night, didn‘t you?” asked Robyn, surprised. “She writes for the NME - and bits for other papers too.” She paused. “Didn’t you know? I thought you were being very calm about her being there. But I supposed you didn’t really care.”  
“It wouldn’t have made any difference if I had known,” said Nicola, after a moment. “It’s not as if I’m going to do any singing again.”  
“Are you really not? Even when you come back?”  
Nicola said, “No. Really not.”  
“Well, I think you’re quite, quite mad. If I could sing, I wouldn’t do anything else.”  
Nicola shifted uneasily. “I’d better make a move. Peter’s waiting in the car.”  
“Ok. Good luck and all that.”  
Nicola hesitated, then said, “Robyn, I hope it’s alright - whatever you do. But - it’s like you said about me - I think _you’re_ quite mad for not telling Dai.”


	24. 'You are cordially invited to the opening of WEST ONE.'

Miranda had asked Nicola to come as early as possible on the Saturday of the official gallery opening party. For moral support, Miranda had said, but it also meant Nicola enjoyed a Private Viewing.  
“Where’s Jan?” she asked.  
“Gone back home to get the camera,” said Miranda. “The one thing we forgot.” Nicola realised that Miranda was trying very hard not to be obviously anxious. “It looks amazing,” she said, of the waiting gallery.  
An enormous orange canvas insisted on her attention as she walked around the first room. As she drew closer, she realised it was unfair to call it orange. It had all the colour of flames; and like flames it seemed to move and flicker as she stared at it. It was like seeing pictures in a fire, as sinuous shapes suggested chasing animals or writhing faces.  
“Have you seen how she signs it?” asked Miranda, breaking into Nicola’s reverie.  
“How who signs it?”  
“Instead of a signature? Look.” Miranda pointed at the bottom right corner of the canvas, and Nicola, peering closer, saw a tiny but perfect, painted red apple.  
“This is Pippin’s?”  
“Indeed it is,” said Miranda. “And those two on that wall. And she’s _Pomona_ to everyone who knows her now - as far as her work goes anyway.”  
Miranda showed a rather awed Nicola around the rest of the gallery. Two large rooms opened into each other, and Miranda had also broken up the space with screens to create separate areas for the different styles of work.  
“I like these,” said Nicola of some pen-and-ink sketches of birds. If she’d known more about art she might have appreciated the almost Japanese technique of the pictures; as it was she liked the way an almost white sheet of paper could become a living bird bursting into flight simply through a few briefly daubed lines.  
“I found these in Norfolk,” Miranda explained. “When Jan and I were up there for a weekend.”  
“So who’s coming?” asked Nicola, when she had seen and admired everything.  
“Well, everyone who’s anyone in the art world - critics and people - have been _invited,_ but I don’t know how many will show up. And then it’s a mixture of people with actual money who’ll hopefully buy things, and people who’ll look young, glamorous and cool.”  
The people with money included everyone who Miranda and her father knew through the Shop and, somewhat reluctantly on Miranda’s part, all the Ladies her mother Lunched with. Lawrie and her drama school friends had been lured with the promise of unlimited sparkling wine to come and pretend to be bright, young things. Actually, little acting was required as several of them , including Lawrie, had already landed their first paying roles and were very full of themselves. Then there were the artists themselves and their friends, (apart from the Norfolk bird artist, who Miranda said was so paralytically shy that she made Esther look extrovert) and everybody else that Miranda and Jan knew well enough to invite.  
“I do hope people are going to turn up,” said Miranda.  
“Of course they will,” said Nicola reassuringly, and, as if in answer to her words, the first guests appeared in the doorway.

As the two rooms steadily filled up, it occurred to Nicola that she could be most useful passing round some of the trays of nibbles - if only to prevent Lawrie and her friends from eating them all. She had a long conversation with Miranda’s father, and a short one with her mother which left her thinking, as always, no wonder Miranda didn’t seem very fond of her. Several old school acquaintances greeted her enthusiastically as if they’d been the best of friends before, and was it true that she was going to be sailing all around the world on her own? To which she said no and yes in the right places before they lost interest, and told her about their travels or jobs or boyfriends - some of which was interesting and some of which definitely wasn’t.

Jan, who had had much the same idea as Nicola, was going round filling up peoples’ glasses to make sure that Lawrie’s lot didn’t drink all the wine. She paused beside Miranda during a rare moment when she wasn’t talking to a potential customer.  
“Isn‘t it going well!” she murmured.  
“I know! Have you seen all my red stickers?” Small red dots had been placed under at least half the pictures. “And almost everyone’s come.”  
“I shall be having words with my brother though. He hasn’t showed up yet.”  
“No,” said Miranda. She was facing the door, and could see both him and Dai arriving. “He’s coming now.”  
“Are you too cool to turn up on time, now you‘re a famous rock star?” asked Jan, greeting him.  
“It‘s lovely to see you too,” said Philip, with a brief peck on the cheek for first Jan, then Miranda. “ I had to pick something up on the way is all.”  
“Well, haven’t you scrubbed up well!” said Miranda, admiringly.  
“Just doing what Jan told me,” said Philip. He was looking very sleek in an immaculate pale grey suit, over a crisp white shirt with no tie and the top button undone. His hair curled softly over the turned up collar. The only thing that stopped him from looking like a photo in a magazine was the faded bruise high up on his cheek. “All for you, you see.”  
Miranda felt ridiculously touched, both by Jan asking and him bothering.  
“I’m being the glamorous one and Dai’s being the one with all the money,” added Philip. “He wants to buy your most expensive picture.”  
“No I don‘t,” objected Dai. “I want to buy _this_ one!” He was staring transfixed at Pomona’s masterpiece in orange. He blinked a little, then said seriously to Philip, “How about it? For the album cover?”  
“Would you like to talk to the artist?” asked Miranda, smoothly switching into proprietary mode. “You could even consider commissioning her to create something that would be exactly suited for your album?”

Pomona had reverted rather splendidly to type, thought Nicola. She wore a long green, embroidered kaftan, and her raven black hair hung long and loosely shining to her waist. Nicola, who had last seen her three years ago, in Kingscote’s Sixth Form uniform was very secretly impressed.  
She was chatting idly to her, with her back to the door, when Pomona’s eyes widened appreciatively, and she said, “Well, hello-o. I wouldn’t mind painting _him!”_  
There was only one person Nicola knew who regularly inspired that reaction, and her heart gave an almighty thump.  
She schooled her face before she slowly wheeled round. He saw her as she turned and flashed her an instant pleased smile. She felt stupidly giddy with relief. She didn’t hear a word of Miranda’s introductions or the conversation that opened between Dai and Pomona. Philip neatly side-stepped the others and nudged her.  
“Are you still mad at me?” he asked, very low.  
“No!”  
“Oh, good,“ he said. “Can I talk to you?”  
“Yes.”  
“Phil?” Dai’s voice interrupted them, and they realised that both Dai and Pomona were waiting for him to express an opinion.  
“Oh, yes, terrific idea,” he said hastily, without a clue what they had been talking about.  
Nicola waited, not taking in a word, until Dai and Pomona, still talking enthusiastically drifted back towards the big orange painting.  
“Come outside?” suggested Philip, and she followed.  
“Philip,” she said, as soon as they were out of the door. “About that last night - I wanted to say I was sorry!”  
“Oh no - you were right - I should have asked first. I was thinking - you could pay me back if you wanted - when you get a job, I mean.”  
“Oh. Yes, ok.” She swallowed. “I didn’t mean just that.”  
He half-smiled, and said carelessly, “Oh, well, that too.”  
“I’ve been trying to phone you.”  
“We’ve hardly been in.” He had stopped beside a car, and was unlocking the passenger door. “Here, come and have a seat for a minute.”  
“Is this _yours?_ ” she asked, looking curiously, admiring the racing green paintwork and the leaping silver cat on the bonnet.  
“Only for the next ten minutes,” he answered, going round to the driver’s side and climbing in. “What do you think?”  
“It’s beautiful,” she said, in genuine admiration, appreciating the smell of leather and the gleaming curves of the dashboard.  
“It’s not brand new of course,” he said. “But it’s been very well looked after by one careful owner, or so I’m told. It wouldn’t do if it broke down the very first time she drove it anywhere, would it?”  
“She?”  
“Oh, it’s for Jan,” he said, as if that had been obvious all along. “That old banger of her’s has been making the most peculiar noises. What do you think? - Do you think she’ll like it?”  
Nicola couldn’t help smiling. He looked disarmingly like a little boy with a surprise.  
“I should think so.”  
“She can take Miranda for little runs in the country on a Sunday. In proper style.”  
“I don’t think Miranda’s all that keen on the country.”  
“Oh, well, the sea-side then.” Abruptly no longer interested, he asked, “When are you going?”  
“Soon. In the next day or two. I’m ready to leave.”  
Smiling distantly, he asked, “So, you’re going to 'find yourself in the sea'?”  
“What?”  
“Never mind. It’s a line from something.” He looked away and frowned a little at the elegant steering wheel. “When you come back, will you come and see me?”  
“Yes.”  
He gave her a quick, intent look. “I mean - come and find me. Don’t just wait till it happens by chance?”  
“No. I mean, yes.”  
It didn’t seem like much that he was asking, or that she was promising, but she knew that it was.  
“Jan will know where I am. Where I’ve moved to.”  
“You’re moving?”  
“Well, as my room is probably going to be a nursery by the time you come back…...”  
“Oh!” she said, relieved, and he glanced at her with an amused gleam.  
“I take it that’s not entirely news to you?”  
“Well, not all of it. Was - is - what did Dai think?”  
“You can ask him yourself,” he said, grinning. “What he’ll _say_ is that he wasn’t leaving any kid of his to be brought up _English_. Speaking of which, I’d better go and see what he’s arranging without me.”  
She supposed that was it, but as she reached for the door handle, he said, “Nick? Can I come and see your boat. Before you go?”  
“Yes, of course,” she said, surprised. “But why?”  
“I’d like to. I’d like to have a picture in my head when you’re away. Is that alright?”  
“If you like. Could you come tomorrow?”  
They were arranging the details of meeting, when someone banged on the car window. They both jumped. The aggressive striped uniform of a traffic warden loomed.  
“You need a ticket if you’re going to be parked there,” he informed them grumpily as they both got out.  
“Indeed we do,” said Philip, at his most charming. “I was _just_ looking for some change.” Clearly there was no change in his suit pockets. He cast Nicola a hopeful look. She grinned and passed him a handful of small change.  
“Always so prepared,” he murmured, as he fed coins into the meter. “I bet you were a _terrific_ Girl Guide!”  
As they went back into the gallery, Jan met them just inside the door. “You’re meant to be in here looking decorative,” she said, mildly reproving. “Not skiving off outside.”  
“Don’t get bossy with me,” said Philip, very brotherly. “Or you won’t get your present.”  
“My what?”  
Nicola, seeing Esther hovering shyly, left them to it. She was going to have tomorrow after all.


	25. A Day At Sea.

She met him at the sleepy village station, where only one train an hour came in from either direction. It occurred to her that if he wasn’t actually on the train she was going to be hanging around for ages hoping he would be on the next one. So when the train rattled in, it was with a rush of relieved pleasure that she saw the carriage door swing open and Philip jump out, looking round for her.  
In the shelter of the long lane that ran down to the quay, it seemed like a perfect summer’s day, with only a light breeze stirring the leaves on the apple trees in the cottage gardens. Ducks paddled complacently in the stream that ran beside the road.  
“The tide’s right so we could go out for a bit, if you like,” she said, rather shyly, and was secretly pleased that he looked excited.  
“Actually out to sea? I’d love to. I’ve never been out to sea in a boat - unless you count the car ferry?” Nicola didn’t really. “We used to take the punt down the river, and we always had to stop in the marshy bit before we could call it the sea.”  
Nicola had vague recollections of a story that she hadn’t heard properly the first time. “Were you going shooting?”  
“Certainly _not._ How can you shoot something that’s flying?” He paused, realising he hadn’t explained himself very well. “Well, obviously people can because they do. But, I think, when a bird’s free in the sky - _flying_ \- how can you shoot it down? Do you know what I mean?”  
She thought she did. He continued, “Actually we were given a shotgun when we were given the punt by our uncle. It went over the side into _deep_ water the first time we took it out. Then I was told with great solemnity that I wasn’t getting another gun because I obviously wasn’t _responsible_ enough..…” He grinned suddenly at the memory. “ It didn’t seem to occur to anyone that in that case I might not be responsible enough to take two small children out on a river. We used to take the bird-spotting guides instead. We'd have the boys wrapped up in an old tarpaulin sat in the front, and we'd set off while it was still dark. Then, if we timed it right, it would be getting light just as we came to this big shining expanse of silver water, that eventually became the sea. We’d poke the punt into a reedy bit, and just sit quiet and watch, counting the birds until the boys got too cold.”  
“That sounds nice.”  
“It was. It’s a good memory.”

 

She had felt a little anxious about him coming to the boat but to her relief, he turned out to be the perfect visitor. When they climbed into the dinghy to get out to her mooring, he didn’t insist that he ought to row. He wasn’t clumsy climbing up on board; he didn’t constantly get in her way, or make any stupid jokes or comments. Instead he sat watching with bright, interested eyes as she made ready to get under way.  
In the harbour the breeze felt fresh, but not too strong; the sails filled and took them gently out to sea. As they sailed out into open sea, the wind was brisker and the waves became choppier. Spray flew up from the flying manes of the white sea horses as they left the land behind them, and the boat started to plunge.

“Are you really doing this for a year?” he asked. It dawned on her that he was looking slightly peculiar.  
“What, sailing? Yes, well, apart from visiting places.”  
“You’ll be going up and down like this for a _year_? Are you _mad?_ ”  
“You get used to it.,” she said, with a recognising ping of sympathy. “Are you feeling sea-sick?” she asked.  
“I am thinking it’s a good thing I didn’t have any breakfast, as it happens.”  
He had all the indignant air of misery of a wet cat, she thought, privately amused to be the one in this position. “Would you like some brandy?”  
“Why would I want brandy?”  
“It stops it,” she explained, then as he looked doubting, added, “Honestly.”  
“If you say so.”  
“Well, you steer for a minute then, while I go down..”  
“Really?”  
“Yes. Take this - it’s alright - you can’t break it - well, you _could_ , but you’d have to do something incredibly stupid.” He smiled reluctantly. She explained both tiller and compass. Ducking hastily below only took her half a minute anyway.  
He took a decent slug of brandy from the flask she handed him. “How do you know this works?” he asked.  
“I used to get horribly seasick all the time. Someone dosed me with brandy once.”  
He eyed her thoughtfully. “You got seasick and you _still_ wanted to do this? You don’t get put off easily!”  
“I suppose not,” she admitted, that side of things having not occurred to her before.  
“That’s why you don’t want to keep singing. It’s too easy,” he observed.  
“Feeling better?”  
“Actually yes. Shall I have some more, just to make sure?”  
“If you like.” Because they weren’t going anywhere in particular, she had chosen a course that would hopefully minimise the bump and roll. “We’ll have to tack soon,” she said. He assumed she wanted the tiller back, but she shook her head. “You keep going.”  
They tacked and sailed on; soon she thought he was starting to enjoy himself.  
“Maybe wear a cap next time?” she suggested. Like Jan, his complexion was fine and pale and he was catching the sun.  
He looked put out. “There I was thinking I must be looking terrifically romantic with the wind in my hair?”  
She laughed. “Not so much with sun burn.”  
“Ah. Such a _practical_ girl, you are.”  
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “Only I did a sort of picnic for today?”  
“Surprisingly yes. I would love a sort of picnic.”  
She had bought a few fresh supplies at the village shop earlier, pork pies and rock buns and suchlike, which they shared in the cockpit and washed down with lemonade.  
After eating, they both fell companionably silent. It was one of those days when she wished they could just sail on for ever.  
“Don’t you think it’s amazing that you can travel round the world just by the power of moving air?” he said eventually.  
“And the engine for emergencies,” she replied, prosaically.  
“It’s like music,” he said. “Like singing. Making air work for you. Your voyage - it’s like a song.”  
“Quite a long song,” she said, faintly bemused.  
“An album,” he said, thoughtfully.  
“And noisy,” she pointed out, hearing the endless slap and hiss of the water, the flap of canvas and all the boat’s familiar creaks as it surged through the waves.  
“What you could do,” he suggested, “is collect music from everywhere you go. A song from every port.”  
He had been speaking idly, but something about the idea struck her, and a seed lodged itself in the back of her mind. (The idea wouldn’t really take root until her first port of call, when she would walk into a bar in Brittany and hear a folk group singing in a language that she didn‘t know but, curiously, wasn‘t French.)  
At last, reluctantly aware of both time and tide, she brought the boat round and set the course back to the harbour.  
They talked less on the return journey. Philip, gazing ahead as they ran before the wind, seemed to have fallen into one of the typical Scott silences. (One of the songs on the band’s first album would be called ‘At Sea’ although the lyrics would have nothing to do with sailing.)  
There was plenty to do as the land came closer, and they entered the harbour again. It wasn't until after the sails were lowered and the boat safely moored, that she realised that, as long as everything went to plan now, she wouldn’t be coming back into an English port for nearly a year.

 

She rowed them back to the quay.  
“I should say - I can row - if you want me to,” he said diffidently, but she shook her head. She wasn’t rowing slowly because she was tired.  
“Leaving tomorrow?” said Philip, more of a statement than a question.  
She nodded, an odd tugging pain reminding her that this day was a parting. “You?” she asked.  
“In the studio. All this week.” He couldn’t repress a smile. “You excited?”  
She nodded again. “You?”  
“Of course. Bit scared too, mind,” he admitted, which meant she too could say, “Oh yes. Me too.”  
“Good luck with yours,” he said, suddenly serious.  
“And with yours.” They climbed the ladder up to the quay, and then all they had left was the walk to the station, which - even though they walked slowly - got them there in almost perfect time for the return train.

There was no-one on the dusty platform, other than a distant guard, watering the hanging baskets. They sat down on the only bench.  
Nicola was aware again of the dull ache somewhere in her chest. Philip broke the silence. “Here,” he said, reaching into his jacket pocket. “I got you something.”  
He handed her a small velvet bag of the type jewellers use. She pulled at the drawstring and tipped out the contents. A simple silver bracelet, with one charm attached. Turning it in her fingers, she saw that it was a tiny enamelled puffin.  
“It’s lovely,” she said, utterly charmed.  
“I found the puffin ages ago and thought you should have it for your boat. Then I got the bracelet in case you didn’t have anything to put it on. Here, let me.” She was trying it round her wrist, and he gently clasped it on for her.  
“I think they’re my favourite of all the sea birds,” she said, recalling the gently bobbing rafts of comically coloured birds that had floated around her boat in the seas off Iceland. She liked the qualities they shared with the boat that was named after them, perfectly designed to be sea-worthy without flashiness, but with irresistible charm.  
“They mate for life, you know,” Philip said, thoughtfully, after a moment. “They’re out at sea for months and months, most of the year really. And then they come back, and there’s their mate come back too, waiting for them.” He hesitated and an expression she had never seen before fleetingly crossed his face. It suddenly occurred to her that he was nervous.  
“Philip - what are you talking about?”  
“Me,” he said, finally.  
The faintest vibration in the air indicated the coming train. They stood up automatically. “I think you may have got the wrong idea,” he said. “Which is entirely understandable, seeing as how it was me that told you some of the worst stories.” His eyes met hers, back to his usual glint of self-mockery. She temporarily couldn’t say anything as the rush and racket of the incoming train caused dust and noise to swirl round them. It stopped and a solitary passenger got out. Philip put his hand on the door handle but still stood on the platform.  
In the relative quiet of the waiting train, she said, “I like that you always told me everything.”  
“Good,” he said. “Then you’ll believe what I have to say. When you come back, I’ll be waiting for you. There won’t be anyone else. Ever.”  
“Are you getting on?” asked the guard abruptly, coming to slam the door.  
“Take this,” Philip said, pulling a wad of paper out of his pocket and thrusting it at her. “If you ever think about me while you‘re out there - that‘s what I‘ll be playing. Not my usual thing, but it does say it all.” As she took it, he swung up into the compartment with a last wry smile, and the guard slammed the door impatiently, the train already moving.  
She waited as the receding roar became a distant hum and then silence. Dust resettled.  
She looked down at the paper he had given her, folded very small and thick to fit in his pocket. She slowly opened it out, smoothing out the creases as she went, and saw that it was a sheet of music, torn roughly out of a songbook.  
She had doubted before, what firstly Miranda, and then Robyn had told her. It had seemed so unlikely. It was only now, staring at both notes and words in black and white, that she felt the dull ache in her chest lift, to be replaced by the sudden incoming rush of happiness; a burst of joy so intense that she could only liken it to the feeling of wanting to burst into song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song that Philip gives Nicola is here -  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dDGnl8_Dzg


	26. Beyond The Sea.

Philip had moved by the time Nicola’s postcard came. Jan and Miranda had invited him to make use of the spare room in their flat above the gallery, but as he pointed out, the reason he needed to move was _not_ to be in the way.  
They went to visit him, and had to climb several flights of stairs to get to his top floor flat. Miranda brought one of the Norfolk bird painter’s sketches by way of a house-warming present, and it hung in solitary glory on the otherwise bare walls.  
“I take it you like being high up,” said Miranda, looking at the view from the window.  
“It’s coming from Norfolk,” remarked Jan. “We’ve had enough of flatness to last a lifetime.”  
“What do you think?” Philip asked Miranda. Miranda gazed out at rooftops and chimneys, old buildings sandwiched between the new, the odd treetop seen from above, life going on in the streets below, and in the distance the shining ribbon of the river glimpsed between buildings.  
“I think it’s perfect,” she said.  
There was no furniture yet in the living room, just the long line of guitars with all the usual paraphernalia of wires, headphones and speakers and one stool on which a player could sit.  
“You’ve had the broken one mended,” said Jan, keen-eyed, noticing. “Aren’t you getting organised? All you need now is some chairs.”

 

Robyn arrived early one morning at the studio where the band were rehearsing, and found Philip already there, playing around with a new song. She dropped the postcard in his lap.  
Philip glanced at it quickly, a generic holiday photo showing white walls, red roofs and impossible blue sky, and turned it over.  
“Are you two writing in code now?” asked Robyn, lightly curious.  
“Yes. It means she thought someone nosy was going to be gawping at it,” said Philip, but quite amicably.  
“Oh come on, it’s a _postcard!_ No-one can _help_ seeing,” protested Robyn. Picking the postcard off the doormat, and flipping it over to see who it was for, she genuinely hadn‘t been able to avoid seeing the careful, if not expert, doodle of a bird with a bar of music in a speech bubble issuing from its beak.  
“It’s something good though, right?” she asked, watching his face.  
Philip only grinned. “Don’t you have a deadline to worry about?”  
“No, all done. I dropped it off on the way here.” It was a review of a concert, one of several snippets of work that Christie had put her way.  
“See, that’s why we need you to come on tour with us. _Organisation!”_  
“I don’t seem to have any choice, do I?” said Robyn. “It’s a week to go and you haven’t got anyone else.”  
“That’s because we want you.”  
Robyn shrugged, cheerfully accepting a foregone conclusion. She did want to go after all, and everybody knew she would be good at having them in the right places at the right time and knowing where things were. “As long as we’re safely back here in time,” she said.  
“Bound to be. There’ll be weeks to go,” said Philip, absently. His thoughts clearly drifting miles away, he began to softly play a tune.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Nicola sends Philip is here.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7kmw31nRDU


	27. While You Were Gone.

Christmas had been such a non-event in his life for so many years, that Philip, getting a drink at the hotel bar, had no more thought in his head than an abstract feeling of pleasure at the knowledge that he could leave his bag unpacked and not get on the bus in the morning. Their tour itinerary had brought them to Cardiff on Christmas Eve where they were effectively stranded until they moved on again the day after Boxing Day. Because it was the night before Christmas, they had started and finished the gig bang on time. Their two roadies cum drivers cum security guys had packed up with even more than their usual efficiency. They were a tight-knit band and usually stuck together off-stage as well as on; but some of Dai’s old friends from his home in the valleys had come and taken him off for a few drinks. Martin and Owain had disappeared too, no doubt having the sort of evening that Philip himself would have taken for granted a year or so ago.  
They weren’t put up in decent hotels, and the bar wasn’t the sort of place where revellers partied on Christmas Eve. The bored barman was relieved to have someone to talk to and Philip was half-listening to his stories, when Robyn appeared.  
“I thought you’d gone with Dai?”  
“No. I wasn’t feeling very well. I thought if I just got some sleep I’d be ok.”  
“You don’t _look_ great,” he commented, realising that in fact she did look pale and miserable.  
“He said he wouldn’t be late. He said he’d be back when the pubs chucked out. He wasn’t going on anywhere.”  
“Well, must be about that time now,” he said, idly. It wasn’t like Robyn to seem anxious.  
“Only I think I need a taxi to the hospital. My waters just broke.”  
‘Oh _bloody hell’_ he thought, but just managed not to say out loud. Instead, he said, “No, I’ll drive you. I’ve got the bus keys.”  
She didn’t answer, biting her lip suddenly. He said doubtfully, “Or do you want to wait for Dai to come back?”  
She seemed to focus again. “I don’t think we can - it - it hurts quite a bit already.”  
Something of his father’s bedside manner came back to him. “Ok, don’t worry. We’ll leave a message at reception for him and he’ll follow as soon as he gets back. I‘m sure he won‘t be long.”  
He left the message, privately worrying that the receptionist didn’t seem at all interested and would probably forget, and led her out to the battered old minibus that served them as tour bus.  
“I know we’ve joked about this,” she said, glancing back at the ripped seats with their leaking stuffing, “but I really, really don’t want to give birth in this bus.”  
“Don’t panic,” he said, still trying to sound reassuring. “The hospital’s only a few minutes away.”  
“Is it?”  
“I have absolutely _no_ idea,” he said, suddenly realising. He slammed on the brakes, screeching to a halt outside the hotel door, and ran in. He returned, having got directions. “It’s only five minutes away and we can’t miss it,” he said, relieved.  
As he pulled out into the road, she leaned forward and gripped the dashboard. When she could speak again, she said, “It shouldn’t _be_ this early. Everyone said first babies come _late_.”  
“Four weeks isn’t impossibly early. Maybe they got the dates wrong?” he said, consolingly, remembering his father being called out in the night on occasions like this. And - much worse - his mother had given birth at home when the twins came early; a memory he still flinched at - his twelve year old self hearing sounds behind a closed door, and seeing later an unspeakable bundle of sheets being carried out.  
There was no traffic on the roads and he was driving as fast as he dared.  
“What if Dai _doesn’t_ come back?” she asked.  
“I’ll go and find him.”  
“How?”  
“Easy.” He ignored a red light at a deserted junction. “I’ll just go into the centre where the pubs are and look for a shouting Welsh man.”  
“Phil, we’re in _Cardiff!_ ”  
“Oh. You mean you want the _right_ shouting Welshman?”  
“ For fuck‘s sake, Phil, not funny !”  
“No, quite right - _not_ a time for humour,” he said meekly, thinking that at least when she yelled at him she didn’t look so horribly _frightened._  
Fortunately the receptionist’s directions had been right and they couldn’t miss the hospital; a distinctive old building on the main road.  
They didn’t get the warmest of welcomes. It occurred to Philip that neither he nor Robyn looked particularly respectable through the eyes of the middle-aged midwife.  
“Are you booked in?” she asked. Her uniform was reassuringly crisp, but her voice was correspondingly frosty. “When did your waters break? …. No, well, I don’t suppose anything will happen tonight. But we’ll keep you in, just in case.”  
They were left waiting in some sort of waiting room. When the midwife returned she glowered at Philip. “You’ll have to go. Visiting hours are only until ten.”  
Robyn looked at him, a mute plea.  
“It’s hardly _visiting_. I’m going to stay until the father gets here.”  
“You’re not the father?” She looked even more disapproving. “You’ll definitely have to go then.” She turned to Robyn. “You’ll need to get some sleep.”  
“I’m not going to be able to _sleep_!”  
“Are you starting to feel some pain?”  
Robyn, very white, nodded.  
“How long are the gaps between the pains?” asked the midwife.  
“There’s supposed to be _gaps?_ ”  
At that moment, to Philip’s enormous relief, the door banged open, and Dai, smelling of pub and looking even more disreputable than they did, barged in.  
“Dai!” cried Robyn, and they clung together.  
“Are you alright?” he asked her.  
The midwife, very prickly, asked pointedly, “So can I take it _you’re_ the husband?”  
“Yes!” growled Dai, then amended, “At least, I will be.”  
“Will you?” asked more than one voice, but he only answered Robyn. “Yes, of course. We just have to meet this little person first.”  
“We’d better put you in a room,” said the midwife. “This way.”  
Left behind, and very thankfully surplus to requirements, Philip sank down onto one of the narrow, plastic covered seats. There was nowhere anyone expected him to be and no point in going anywhere else.  
He supposed it must be technically Christmas day itself by now. A small artificial tree, decorated with a few meagre strands of tinsel stood on a table in the corner. Poor baby, he thought, having a Christmas birthday.  
The chair was slippery and uncomfortable, but he had slept in far worse places and eventually he must have dozed off. He woke with a start because someone had made a noise that to his drowsing ears could only be described as a squeak. He opened his eyes to see a young woman in nurse’s uniform staring at him.  
“You’re Philip Scott!”  
“I was the last time I looked,” he agreed, sleepily.  
“From Ffurnais! What are you _doing_ here?”  
What did people usually do here, he wondered. “There was no room at the inn,” he tried.  
“What?” She seemed much friendlier than the dragon who had met them earlier; quite pretty with brown eyes and her hair in a dark, shiny bob. He presumed that the astonished expression wasn’t actually permanent.  
“My friends are having a baby,” he explained. “At least, one of them is. The other one’s just standing idly by.”  
“Oh.” She perched on the chair opposite. “I was supposed to be coming to see you tonight. Only they put me on duty and wouldn’t let me swap shifts, so I had to give the ticket to my sister. And _she’s_ not even that into you!”  
“Well, I do hope she wasn’t too bored.”  
She giggled. “She won’t believe this! Can I have your autograph?”  
“Is it worth a cup of tea?” he asked, thinking it was worth trying.  
“If I’m quick before anyone notices,” she said, and scurried off, leaving him rather bemused. It was the first time he had been recognised away from the usual music venues, and out of context. Although their album was selling well by the standards of their small record company, and all the tour dates had mostly been sell-outs, they were still essentially a relatively unknown indie band beyond their own network of fans.  
She returned soon after with not only a mug of tea, but a stash of biscuits, and pen and paper. He took the pen and asked her name.  
“Any chance you can find out how it’s going?” he suggested, hopefully.  
“I’ll see what I can do,” she promised. Left to himself again, he took the paper and wrote ‘Happy Christmas love Philip Scott’ in big loopy letters. She was gone for a few minutes, so he absently doodled a guitar. When she still wasn’t back, he drew it growing into a Christmas tree, and added stars and notes by way of decoration. He was just trying to persuade himself that her still being gone didn’t mean there was anything to worry about, when she returned, looking stunned but cheerful.  
“You didn’t tell me it was Dai Jones in there!”  
“Please tell me you didn’t ask him for his autograph!”  
She stared at him, all wide-eyed innocence. “Oh. Do you think it was a bad time?”  
She held his doubtful gaze for just the right length of time, before bursting out laughing and saying, “No, of course I didn’t! I’m not daft!”  
He laughed a little too, then she said, more sensibly, “They’ve just had a baby girl.”  
“Is everything alright?”  
“Yes, perfect. She’s small but everything’s fine. They’ll send the dad out soon, I expect.”  
After she had gone, and now that there was nothing to worry about, he felt an unsettling pang of aloneness. Not because he had ignored the obvious invitation in those soft brown eyes, but because something about the way Dai and Robyn had wrapped around each other earlier had left him yearning. Not that life wasn’t being amazing - because it was - in the studio, on tour, it was all being as good as he’d ever imagined it could be - but still, a year was being a long, long time.  
Dai did come out soon after, looking rather dazed.  
“Congratulations,” said Philip, somewhat tentatively.  
They emerged from the over-heated hospital into a cold, dark Christmas morning. The streets were empty. Philip paused, getting his bearings. It took a minute to remember where the bus was parked, after the panic of the previous night.  
“So, what’s it like being a dad?” he asked, as they eventually headed in the right direction.  
Dai gave a bewildered shake of his head. “Proper scary,” he said. But he grinned to himself as he climbed into the bus. “She’s a clever girl though,” he said, proudly.  
“Who? Robyn?”  
“The baby. She must have known she was in the right place. I reckon she knew where she wanted to be born!”  
Philip started the engine. “Robyn might have preferred it to happen when and where it was supposed to?”  
“Yeah well, planning doesn’t seem to be our thing.”  
“You don’t say. ……Has she got a name yet?”  
Dai looked ahead at the darkness which receded beyond their headlights. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “She’s our little star. Her name’s Seren.”  
“If Robyn agrees?”  
“That,” said Dai, “goes without saying.”


	28. Home.

Nicola sailed into Weymouth on a day that was as damp and raw as only an English summer’s day can be. ‘ _Huh_ ’ she thought, eyeing the grey seaside town as she came in, as she had thought several times already during the dawn hours at sea. There were several weeks to go until she actually needed to be back - she could have stayed in real summer _heat_.  
She could also have sailed on to Yetland Cove; the distance wasn’t so very much further, but she had been aware of creeping fatigue affecting her reactions. She had been sailing over night and all the day before. And Yetland Cove meant Trennels and people and fuss; and that wasn’t what she had come back for at all.  
During the last weary hours of the journey, she had been longing alternately for sleep and for food, and she had been promising herself that once she was moored and tidied up she would go and have the biggest cooked breakfast she could find, before settling down on her bunk. But now, after months of living on a Mediterranean diet, the greasy, lingering smell of all the ’Full English’s drifting from the holiday guesthouses turned her stomach . And now that she could safely sleep, the need had perversely left her, so that she found herself compulsively doing various sorting-out jobs, that really could have waited. Eventually, having tidied herself to a standstill, and it being closer to lunchtime than breakfast, she made a meal out of some of her remaining supplies.  
She _was_ tired. Her mind felt temporarily blank. She needed to find a phone, then a bank, and maybe a launderette. And if she could, a hot shower in the sailing club building.  
She put on her cleanest clothes - although ‘clean’ simply meant having been hand-washed in sea water - and removed her small supply of sterling money from the tin at the back of a locker where it had hibernated all voyage. Then she went ashore.  
She wandered along the harbour-side towards the sea front, tuning in to the sound of English being spoken all around her, and feeling a sense of dislocation at the sight of shops with striped awnings selling seaside rock and Dorset clotted cream fudge. She walked past chip shops, pubs, tacky ‘souvenir’ shops; then pensioners in heavy coats sitting in the shelters along the front, stoically eating ice-cream cones. A billboard of posters, advertisements for coming attractions, bands on tour. _Bands_ on tour.  
She stopped. The other two were looking suitably cool and moody, but something had made Dai and Philip laugh just before the photo was taken. He didn’t _do_ cool and moody, she thought. A list of places and dates. She had to remember what date she’d written in the ship’s log, and then work out where they were. They would be here on Friday, the day after tomorrow. Bristol tomorrow. Cheltenham today.  
So she didn’t need to bother finding a phone box after all. She could just stay here until Friday. Or get the train to Bristol tomorrow.

 

“Cheltenham, please,” she said to the man in the ticket office.  
“Single or one-way?”  
“How much is it?”  
She didn’t have enough cash for the return. “Single, please.” She would have to find a bank when she got there.  
“Change at Bristol,” he told her. “It’ll be either two minutes wait or nearly an hour. Depends if this one gets held up.”  
The train from Weymouth to Bristol was a local train with only two carriages. It was slow, stopping at every small station, but she managed to get a window seat and quite enjoyed the relaxing sensation of travelling without having to be responsible for every aspect of the journey.  
It was astonishing how green everything was, she thought, idly watching the Dorset countryside go by. It was like a bath for the eyes after nearly a year spent either at sea, or in towns by the sea, or in landscapes more arid, rocky or mountainous than these gently rolling fields and hills.  
The train stopped a couple of times, waiting for signals in the seeming middle of nowhere. The dampness of the day had turned into drizzle and she stared out at a wet, green world and tried not to start wondering if anything had changed over the past year.  
She had to wait almost an hour at Bristol Station for her connection, by which time she was aware again of exhaustion making her feel edgy and scratchy.. Once she was safely seated on the train to Cheltenham, she felt sleep threatening to overwhelm her, and jerked awake at every stop, afraid that if she did fall asleep she would miss her stop and wake up in Birmingham.  
But she was safely awake and alert as the Cheltenham Spa station sign came into view, and she climbed out onto the platform, glad to be actively walking around again. She asked the way to the concert hall where they were playing, and was probably misdirected because the walk seemed much longer than she’d expected from looking at the street map outside the station. The only thing that made her feel remotely efficient again was finding a bank five minutes before closing time, and being able to withdraw some money. So at least she could buy a ticket back if she needed to.  
It was not until she reached the concert hall that she fully realised that she hadn’t thought things through at all.  
There were posters outside the hall, all covered with stickers bearing the legend ‘Sold Out’. The doors were still closed, but a small queue was forming, of people who wanted to get a place at the front as soon as the doors opened. Clearly she wasn’t going to be able to just walk in.  
There must be some sort of back entrance, where vehicles could get in to unload stuff. Both sides of the building were closed off by neighbouring buildings, but there must be another way in. She would have to walk round the block and find the entrance from behind. She turned right and set off, thinking to keep turning left and left. She trudged for quite a way with no turning appearing, so eventually she had to give up and go back the other way.  
She was only wearing light plimsolls, suitable for clambering around on deck, but not for walking miles on pavements; she felt footsore and uncharacteristically frazzled. Perhaps this hadn’t been such a good idea. The internal voice that always sounded like Rowan at these times butted in: ‘You can’t just _keep_ jumping on trains without the slightest idea what you’re going to _do_ when you get there. It isn’t always going to work out.’  
Luckily in the other direction, she did find a turning into a road behind the hall, and came to an entrance for vehicles. It was however, as she should have expected, closed by a barrier, and watched over by a bored security guard.  
“You can’t come in here,” he informed her, as she tried to walk past the end of the barrier.  
What she was going to need here was charm, she thought crossly, but she wasn’t either Ginty or Lawrie who could turn it on like a tap when needed. As politely as she could, she said, “I’ve got a message for Philip Scott. In the band. I was hoping I could go in.”  
He made a noise somewhere between a hah and a hmpf. “Have you got a pass?”  
“No. But I’m a friend - I mean, I’m not just a fan. He - he’d want me to go in.”  
“That’s what they all say, love,” he said, not particularly kindly.  
“But I know them all,” she explained. Trying to think of something that might persuade him, something that a fan wouldn’t know, she said, “You could check with Robyn? She’d know.”  
“Look, love,” he said impatiently. “ I work for the theatre. The band is nothing to do with me. And you’re not coming in.”  
She hesitated, all sorts of unlikely plans for dodging past him darting through her mind. It would never work, and the band might not even be there yet.  
“Can I leave a message, please?” she asked.  
“I’m not a messenger boy.”  
“But they must come in this way? _Please?_ It is important.” She sounded rather more pathetic than she’d actually intended, she thought, irritated with both herself and him.  
“You can leave it with me. But I’m not promising anything,” he said grudgingly.  
“That would be _fantastic,_ ” she said, laying on the gratitude. “Even if you could pass it to one of the roadies, or any of them. Thank you.”  
She kept a notebook in her backpack, and she took a clean sheet, wondering what to write. She had passed a large pub on her way to the hall, she could wait there. She wrote simply, ‘Hi. I’m in the Crown, Nicola.’ She folded it and wrote his name in large capitals on the outside.  
“Thanks - thanks a lot,” she said again, for good measure, as she handed it over.

 

The pub, when she got back to it, seemed quite a smart and respectable place, with a restaurant attached. It wouldn’t be too uncomfortable a place to be waiting. But it wasn’t open yet, so she wandered along the road until she found a newsagent still open. She bought a newspaper and some chocolate, and then after some thought an NME and a Horse and Hound.. Without hurrying, she came back to the pub as it opened. She asked for a pint of shandy and ordered chicken and chips at the bar, then pondered where to sit. In view of the door would be good, but she didn’t want to be attract unwanted attention as a woman sitting on her own, so she settled for a leather sofa in the corner which had a reasonable view of the bar.  
She ate and drank slowly, and read the most interesting bits in her papers, scanning the Horse and Hound in case there was any mention of Ginty. There was, a win and several placings among the various event reports.  
After an hour or so, she bought another pint. Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to come himself. He would have to send someone else to fetch her, one of the roadies maybe. _If_ the man at the gate had passed the message on. _If_ whoever he passed it to realised it mattered and gave it to Philip. _If_ …. If he still even cared….  
You couldn’t just go away for a year and assume people wouldn’t change, she thought, the cold fingers of doubt starting to creep over her. The concert should have started by now. If anyone had seen the message, someone would have come.  
Time passed slowly. She read the less interesting bits in the paper. She would wait until after the concert finished - just in case - and then go back to the station.  
She didn‘t want another drink, but she bought one anyway and let it sit in front of her, so they couldn’t complain about her taking up space. Having read even the dullest bits in all three papers, she tried to do the newspaper crossword. After some time she realised that she had been staring at the same clue for at least ten minutes with her mind completely empty.  
What she was longing for was her own bunk on the Tommy Noddy; the best she could hope for now was to be able to sleep on the train, more likely she would be spending the night on a bench on the station platform. She became drowsily reluctant to leave the relative comfort of her seat. Her last conscious thought was that she might as well stay here until they called time and chucked her out.

 

_“Nicola!_ ”  
She blinked and came awake to find that nothing _had_ changed.  
“You were fast asleep!”  
“Almost,” she admitted.  
“Never mind almost! They were about to clear you up with the glasses!” He was half crouching, half kneeling in front of her, lightly touching her hands. She recognised the dishevelled straight-after-a-gig look. “I’m so sorry, Nick,” he said. “Those idiots only gave me the message just now. I was afraid you’d have given up and gone.”  
They gazed at each other. “Where have you come from?” he asked eventually.  
“Weymouth.”  
“We’re going there, I think. You could have stayed there and we’d have got to you…..I’m glad you didn’t though.” he added. “When did you get back?”  
“This morning,” she said. It felt impossible that it could only been that morning - it now seemed strangely distant in time.  
“This _morning_ ,” he repeated. “You were sailing last night? And you came straight here?” She nodded yes to both, and a look of stunned joy spread across his face. “When did you last sleep?”  
“The night before,” she said. It could have been a lifetime ago.  
The barman, collecting glasses, reminded them impatiently, “We’re closing.”  
“And we’re going,” Philip retorted. He pulled her up. “You need to be in bed,” he said, very sternly even though his eyes were laughing. “And I do mean _sleeping._ ”

The combination of sleepiness and not being acclimatized made Nicola shiver as they walked out into the damp night air.  
“Cold?” he asked. One arm already round her, he gently swung her round and drew her close. He was only in a Tshirt but he was radiating heat, as she leant into him. It hadn’t occurred to her that it would feel so lovely and safe to be in his arms, like coming into harbour.  
“You smell of the sea,” he said, his voice close to her hair.  
“Oh, is that bad?” she asked, uncertainly.  
“No. It’s good. Everything’s good.”  
She wished that he could hold her there for ever. “You know before,” she said, because she had to say it properly sometime. “That last night when I was - when I was angry..”  
His eyes looked into her's. “You mean this,” he said, and bent towards her. For the length of a heart beat his lips brushed hers. She didn’t pull away.  
“I was being awfully stupid back then,” she said, and saw the still cautious look in his eyes vanish.  
“Wrong maybe,” he said. “ _Never_ stupid.”  
Voices in the distance reminded them that they were standing in the street. “Bother,” he said, softly, eyeing a gaggle of people coming up the far end of the street, enough of them to spread across the pavement and sprawl into the road. He sighed, and keeping one arm firmly round her, they started walking.  
As the group approached it became obvious to Nicola that these were concert -goers; some of them were wearing tour t-shirts. The first one to spot them called out Philip’s name and soon they were surrounded by a small, amiable mob. Philip was amenable, signed everything that was shoved at him, but managed to get himself and Nicola away in fairly short time without anyone feeling offended that he hadn’t wanted to talk to them all night. Nicola was rather impressed.  
“It’s not far,” he said. She had lost all sense of direction after her wanderings earlier, but they seemed to be following a road away from the centre.  
“So how has your year been?” he asked..  
She had kept a detailed log book about everything; and in later years she could reread it and find everything came back to her with the vivid clarity of a photograph. But tonight, in her disoriented, dazed state the experiences of the last year merged together in her mind. “It was… all good..” she said, then lost track and shook her head. His hand closed firmly round hers, a warm, firm grasp.  
“You can tell me all about it tomorrow,” he said. “And the next day. And you have to meet our newest member.”  
“Who?”  
“Our Official Tour Baby.”  
They turned into an undistinguished hotel lobby, rather beige and anonymous. As they went up the steps to the door, he frowned slightly and admitted, “One small problem is that I left my room key in my bag at the gig, along with everything else. We’ll have to see if anyone’s been very efficient.”  
A few words with the receptionist, and it turned out that someone (probably Robyn) had indeed been efficient. His bag had been left behind the desk.  
A couple of flights of stairs, a corridor, all the same dreary beige. Then she was in his room, his arms, his kiss.  
“Nick,” he said, pulling gently away.  
“What?” she asked, resting her head on his shoulder because it felt so nice.  
After a long moment while they stayed just like that, he said softly, “Bedtime, sleepyhead.” She looked up, and he was smiling. He guided her to the bed, and they sat down.  
“Are you laughing at me?” she asked, sleepily suspicious.  
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, soothingly. “Don’t go away. I’m going to go and wash off all this gig sweat. See - you can tell we’re going up in the world - we get bedrooms with bathrooms!” Before she could protest, he left her on the bed and disappeared through an adjoining door.  
She listened dreamily to the sound of running water. She hadn’t sat on a proper bed for a year, and this one was invitingly soft. The covers were pulled back as if to entice one in. She might as well lie down while she waited, with her head on the pillow - so beautifully plump, and smelling of clean linen. She would only close her eyes for a minute, and then he’d be back.

 

 

The bed was too soft, the pillow too pillowy, the sheets too smooth and cottony, and everything was so _still_. Wondering why the boat wasn’t moving, she woke confused, wondering where she was. She was under a sheet and blanket which was rather curiously pinned down on one side. Stirring cautiously, she looked across and saw that Philip was asleep on top of the blankets, clothed and lying in a neat straight line at the edge of the bed.  
It was impossible to tell what time it was. The grey half-light could mean it was before dawn, or could be simply that the window faced a brick wall.  
She rested her head on the pillow again, waiting. She supposed he had known what he was doing, leaving her alone, but all the same, she rather wished he hadn’t. It must be terribly bad form to crash asleep on someone like that. And besides ….  
She couldn’t help marvelling that there had ever been a time when she could have been this close to him without wanting to peel off his T-shirt and slide herself around him like a second skin. Or bury her face in his neck and taste the skin there in that hollow above his collar bone. Or…  
As if aware of her scrutiny his eyes opened. “Nicola,” he said, wonderingly. He lay still, gazing at her, like a sleepy lion. “Come here,” he said softly.  
He rolled towards her and she shifted, pushing the sheet down awkwardly. And there they were again, in each others’ arms.  
“You’re really here,” he said. “Only I have woken up from dreams like this…”  
A small snort escaped her. “That wasn’t even a line,” he said reproachfully. She was blissfully aware of all the length and weight of him against her, the faint scent of shampoo and clean skin and underlying that, the smell that was uniquely _him._  
“I didn’t mean to go to sleep,” she said.  
“No?” She felt his jaw against hers. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to kiss him. She couldn’t have said who moved first, but it was infinitely tender and gentle.  
He pulled away and said softly, somewhere into her neck, “You know I am very pleased to see you. In every possible way. But that doesn’t mean we have to rush anything. Especially as you were practically sleep-walking last night.”  
“Oh.”  
“I was afraid that you weren’t going to come back,” he continued, after a moment in which she traced the line of his jaw with her lips.. “I thought you might meet some rugged sailing type and sail away together.”  
“I did meet some of those,” she admitted. “All being horribly patronising and ever so astonished at little me sailing all that way by myself.”  
“Good,” he said. “I faithfully promise that I will never be astonished at anything that you do.”  
She looked into those sea-coloured eyes only inches from her face and was temporarily unable to believe in the existence of anyone else in the world. Something she’d wanted to do before - she ran her fingers through his mane of hair and pulled his head closer. They kissed properly then, and she was utterly lost, whole-heartedly, joyfully lost.

After that, there was so much more that they needed to say to each other. By the time someone banged on the door and shouted that the bus was _leaving_ in ten minutes and they needed to be _on_ it, they were barely halfway through everything they wanted to tell each other. But that was alright, because they were going to have all the time in the world.


	29. EPILOGUE:    Unicorns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A word of WARNING to anyone who prefers their stories open ended. I had to set this in the modern day, which means that the characters are all what the original canon characters would consider to be positively ancient. And the trouble with time passing is that other people tend to take over the story - even a character from another fic I wrote has crept in here.

_**....... Yahoo Entertainment …. Yahoo Celebrity News …. Yahoo Entertainment ...... Yahoo Celebrity News ..... Yahoo Entertainment ...... Yahoo Celebrity News ......... Yahoo Entertainment ........** _

 

_The singer Toni Scott, whose album ‘Monster’ is at the top of the i-tunes download chart for the third week in a row, recently gave a private performance at a wedding ceremony for her aunt. The outspoken singer - known for her regular outbursts on social media - tweeted after the recent changes in the law to allow same-sex partners to marry: ‘It’s beautiful that two people who have been in love for almost forty years are finally able to get married’ #abouttime_   
_The singer’s aunt Janice Scott, a recently retired solicitor, married her long-term partner Miranda West, who runs the iconic West One gallery. As the couple signed the register, Toni sang her version of ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’._   
_Also attending the wedding were Toni’s father, the musician Philip Scott, and her mother, the folk singer and historian Nicola Scott, as well as two of Toni’s three brothers. (Her eldest brother is currently abroad working as a doctor for the medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres.) Among the celebrities present was the actress Dame Lawrence Marlow (seen lip-synching in a cameo role in Toni’s latest video). Also attending were the former Turner-prize winning artist Pomona Todd, and the artist Anthony Padfield whose installation ‘Angel’ is currently displayed on the fourth plinth on Trafalgar Square. Both Pomona and Anthony are closely associated with the West One Gallery._

_Toni has released her version of the song as a download, available only through her own website, with all profits going to the Syrian Refugee Fund._

 

Nicola wincing, eased off the shoes she had bought for the wedding which had turned out to both pinch and rub.  
“She’s even more of a diva than she used to be,” said Philip, sitting on the edge of the hotel bed, and shrugging off the suit Nicola had insisted he wore.  
Nicola, eyeing him in the mirror, raised an eyebrow. He had always, (in her opinion) over-indulged the children, and the young Antonia - a born drama queen - had been far more trouble than the three boys put together.  
He missed her look as he was pulling his shirt over his head, but he said cheerfully, “Are you giving me one of your looks? It’s no use blaming me. She shares far too much DNA with her Aunt Lawrie, that’s the trouble.”  
“Technically, they all do,” she pointed out.  
“I don’t know how we explain Alex then.”  
“That was your father letting him play with his stethoscope.”  
The truth, as Nicola knew, was that the children all adored their father, and even the worst of Toni’s excesses were curbed by the thought of his disapproval. Because he had been so easy-going with them, it was staggeringly effective if he ever did lose his temper; such as on the now legendary occasion when the then-fourteen-year-old twins had used the aged Tommy Noddy for an illicit party involving girls and lashings of cheap white cider.

Philip’s mind was on something else.  
“Remember the first time _I_ played you that song?”  
“Yes, and I didn’t know what it was. A proper ignorant type I was back then.”  
“You came on well, though,” he said, with a familiar gleam in his eyes.  
Nicola was at the dressing table, unclipping her old charm bracelet. It had been added to over the years, but the original puffin was still attached. Too much salt water had worn away the coloured enamel, but the silver form had stayed true.  
Philip came up behind her and unclasped her necklace. “I can still remember the first time I undressed you,” he said softly, kissing the back of her neck.  
“Before I’d had four children,” said Nicola, a little ruefully.  
“You’re still the most stunning woman in any room,” he said.  
“Don’t be a fool” she growled, to hide how much she liked that he still said these things.  
“It seems like yesterday. You didn’t wear such complicated clothes back then, though.” Nicola was wearing an elegant fitted jacket over her dress. He helped slide it off her shoulders.  
“Tell me,” said Nicola, waiting for his fingers at the zip of her dress.  
“You’d come back from your first trip and fallen asleep on my bed.” Nicola smiled. “But then we talked all morning,” Philip continued. “ Until Dai hauled us out and we had to go on to the next town on the tour - and I’ve no idea which it was...”  
“Bristol,” said Nicola automatically, He unhooked the back of her bra.  
“I don’t remember that gig at all. But it was a hotel room just like this one …” He ran his fingertips lightly down her back, like wind through grass, and she felt a quiver run down her. “I remember you…..”  
He met her eyes in the mirror. “You remember me what?” she asked.  
“I remember you - being you,” he said at last, as if that encompassed everything he needed to say. “Like this.” He swung her round gently and she stepped out of both dress and bra, before he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.  
“And then,” she prompted him, sliding her hands lower round his waist.  
“ _Then_.” They kissed again. “Then, we did _this._ ”


End file.
